Information about the Planet Jupiter

In our solar system, Jupiter lies in between Mars and Saturn. Jupiter, the largest planet of our solar system, is the fifth planet from the Sun. It is so large that you can easily see it with your naked eyes. It is difficult to determine who discovered this planet. Because of its gigantic size, many people must have observed it at night but it was Galileo Galilee, an Italian astronomer who first observed Jupiter closely with his telescope in 1610. The first four moons of this planet were discovered by him. Jupiter facts provided by Galileo made the people change their assumptions.

Before the information presented by Galileo, Earth was believed to be the center of the universe and people believed that other objects revolved around the earth. But with the discovery of the moons of Jupiter, (which were named as Galilean moons), the concepts changed significantly. Now, NASA has sent spacecrafts to the planet Jupiter and even the electromagnetic voices sent by the planet have been recorded by NASA Voyager! Advanced technology has made it possible to discover a number of things about Jupiter.

Interesting Jupiter Facts

• Jupiter is 778,330,000 km away from the Sun. It takes about 12 earth years to revolve around the sun.
• Despite being the largest planet, it rotates very fast on its orbit. It takes about 9 hours 55 minutes to complete one rotation.
• It has the shortest day, only of 10 hours. After Sun, Venus and Mars, Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the sky which can be seen with naked eyes.
• It is not made up of mass and matter, it is a huge ball of hydrogen, nitrogen, helium and water. Because of the dense atmosphere it appears like a solid body. The density of Jupiter is about 25% of the Earth's density.
• Its first three moons were discovered by Galileo Galilee, on 7th Jan 1610. The fourth was discovered on 13th Jan 1610.
• NASA sent its first spacecraft to Jupiter in 1973.
• Moons of Jupiter are located far away from the planet. The 12th moon is about 14, 880,000 miles away from the planet and it takes two years to orbit the planet.
• The ring of Jupiter is about 1km thick and around 5920 km wide. The ring is relatively thinner than that of Saturn.
• Jupiter is referred to as 'vacuum cleaner of the solar system'. Owing to its intense gravitational pull, it attracts comets and other rocky materials towards its atmosphere.

Kids are always interested in knowing fun facts about Jupiter, Mars or Saturn. So here are some more fascinating facts for kids.

Jupiter Facts for Kids

• NASA's spacecrafts Pioneer, Voyager, Ulysses, Cassini, New Horizons, have visited planet Jupiter several times. Voyager 1 discovered the ring of Jupiter.
• Jupiter is such a huge planet that more than 1000 Earths could easily fit inside the planet.
• Millions of years before, Jupiter was a star which then failed to emit light.
• It has a very strong gravitational force. The gaseous structure of the planet is held together by its massive gravity field.
• The red spot seen on the planet is nothing but the 'monstrous storm' that has been going for around 300 years! This red spot of Jupiter is about 2 Earth diameters wide! The atmosphere on this planet is extremely stormy, it exhibits intense wind patterns.
• Jupiter's mass is 318 times larger than that of the Earth. Amongst all the other planets, Jupiter exhibits the strongest pull of gravity.

I hope you found the basic Jupiter facts and information provided in this write up helpful. Scientists are still studying the complex structure of planet Jupiter.