Features of the Planet Jupiter

Jovian planets or gas giants are composed of a rocky core within their balls of gas and include Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun and among all other planets, it is the largest. It is more than twice the mass of all other planets combined (its mass is 318 times compared to the earth) (Redd, 2014). It has a diameter of 142,984 km (equatorial), an orbit of 778,330,000 km (5.20 AU) from the Sun and a mass of 1.900e27 kg (Smith, 2015). It is the fourth brightest object in the sky following Venus, the moon and the sun, and from prehistoric times, it has been known as the bright wandering star. 

In the composition of Jupiter, it does not have a solid surface, its gaseous material usually gets denser with depth and what are seen while looking at the planet are the tops of the cloud high in its atmosphere. The planet is about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium with traces of water, ammonia, methane and ‘’rock’’ which is very close to the composition of primordial Solar Nebula (Smith, 2015). Approximately, Jupiter’s atmosphere is 75% hydrogen and 24% helium by mass with the remainder composed by the other elements (Redd, 2014). Centered on spectroscopy, Saturn and Jupiter are similar in composition but the other giant planets Neptune and Uranus have comparatively less helium and hydrogen.

Jupiter internal structure is alleged to comprise of dense core with a mixture of elements a liquid metallic hydrogen surrounding layer with helium, and an outer layer predominated by molecular hydrogen. The core is described to be rocky with unknown composition. Pressure and temperature increase steadily toward the core, this is due to the mechanism of Kelvin–Helmholtz. At the surface, the temperature is around 340 K (152 °F) and pressure level of 10 bars (Smith, 2015). The planet surface is covered with thick red, yellow, brown and white clouds. One of its most famous features is Great Red Spot which is a giant spinning storm that resembles a hurricane. Jupiter is a windy planet with its winds extending from 192 mph to more than 400 mph (Redd, 2014). 

Jupiter has the leading planetary atmosphere in the Solar System, traversing over 3,000 miles in altitude. The planet has three thin rings which are mostly composed of minute dust particles. Jupiter spins or rotates faster than any other planet, with one rotation equaling one day which is 10 hours long. Jupiter’s orbit is oval shaped or elliptical and it takes 12 earth years to make one revolution around the sun (Redd, 2014). Therefore, a year in Jupiter is identical to twelve years on earth. The magnetic field of Jupiter is 14 times that of the earth, ranging from 4.2 gauss (0.42 mT) from the equator to 10–14 gauss (1.0–1.4 mT) on the poles making it the strongest in the solar system with the exception of sunspots (Smith, 2015). It is the only exception planet whose barycenter with the sun lies outside the sun’s volume by 7% of the sun’s radius giving a 778 million km between the two (Smith, 2015). Due to the reason that’s its orbit is outside the earth, it has an angle which while viewed from the earth never exceeds 11.5 degrees which makes it appear nearly fully illuminated from the earth.

References

Redd, N. (2014). Planet Jupiter: Facts About Its Size, Moons and Red Spot. Space.com. Retrieved 11 June 2016, from http://www.space.com/7-jupiter-largest-planet-solar-system.htmlSmith, H. (2015). What Is Jupiter?. NASA. Retrieved 11 June 2016, from http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-is-jupiter-58.html