9 Weird Facts About Planet Jupiter!
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You know it as the 5th planet in our solar system, and the biggest, but what do you really know about Jupiter? Join us as we explore some of the more unusual aspects of Planet Jupiter!
9. Jupiter's Size And Type Helps It Stay Big
As we outlined in the intro to the video, Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system. In fact, just in comparison to Earth, it's 318 times bigger than our home planet. That's a pretty orb in the solar system.
8. You Can "Hear" Jupiter
I'm sure you're scratching your head on this one. I mean, how can you "hear" a planet that technically doesn't make sounds and has no natural life on it? Simple, just like there's many different ways to "hear" things on Earth, there are many different ways to "hear" things in space. Including using radio waves. Radio Astronomy is a big part of exploring space, and it's actually the reason that we helped confirm the possibility of the Big Bang Theory. In terms of the planets, ones like Jupiter emit their own radio waves.
Who knew Jupiter had so much to say?
7. Jupiter Was Discovered About 3000 Years Ago
When you look up at the sky and see all the stars and occasionally the planets...you know what you're looking at. You're taught in one way or another the importance of the planets, what they meant to the solar system and universe at large and why they're in the sky. But, can you imagine what it was like a few thousand years ago when you looked up at the sky and saw all those twinkling lights?
6. Spinning
Whether you realize it or not, the Earth is spinning. In fact, it's spinning at a pretty good rate, which is why it takes 24 hours to complete a full day. The reason you don't feel it is in part due to gravity, the atmosphere of the planet, and more. Likewise, all the planets in the solar system rotate at their own rates. Some faster than others, and some slower than others. Due to its size, you'd expect Jupiter to be one of the slower moving planets in the solar system. After all, gas planet or not, that's a lot of mass to move, right? Wrong.
In fact, Jupiter, for whatever reason, is the fastest spinning planet in our solar system. At 28,148 mph, it completes a full rotation on its axis at around 10 hours. That's basically 2.5 times faster than Earth. And the fastest "day" in the entire solar system.
5. Its Magnetosphere Is Massive
Pop Quiz! What is the furthest point on a planet? Is it the surface? Nope. Is it the atmosphere...technically...but it does depend on the kind of Atmosphere, and how big it is. There are planets with atmospheres and magnetic fields that go beyond the "shape" of the planet you see. Where it comes to Jupiter though, let's just say that it makes the giant of a planet...look small.
Specifically, Jupiter has a massive magnetosphere
.4. "Invisible Rings"
Another pop quiz, how many planets in our solar system has rings? If you didn't say Jupiter in that list of planets you named off, you would be wrong. For the longest time, Jupiter was thought to just be a gas giant planet without any rings, unlike its fellow gas planets Saturn and Uranus which most definitely have large visible rings.
This was further confirmed by the Galileo probe in 1990.
3. Lightning Striking Again
The atmosphere of Jupiter is not your typical atmosphere for a wide variety of reasons. But one of the worst parts about the atmosphere by far though is that it contains a constant and hard streak of lightning bursts. In fact, these lightning strikes are several times more powerful than the lightning that we have here on Earth.
2. The Moons and Satellites of Jupiter
If you were to look up at the Earth's sky at night when the stars are out, you're likely to see the moon. If you were to look towards Mars with a telescope, you'd see its two moons. Mercury and Venus have none thanks to their proximity to the Sun. But Jupiter? Well, that's a weird story.
Officially, Jupiter has 69 moons, the most in the solar system (Saturn is close to it with 62 for the record). It has four major moons (known as the Galileo moons) that are the easiest to spot.
But that's the rub. For a while, that's all we thought it had, but when Voyager went by the planet, we realized that it had a massive 200 satellite entities in its orbit.
1. The Great Red Spot
Let's be honest here, when you think about Jupiter, there are a few things that stick out in your mind the most. One of them is its size, again, the biggest in the solar system. But two, it has this big red spot on its side that just sticks out like a sore thumb. It was observed and studied back in 1830, and research on it hasn't stopped since then. And technically, it was first noticed a few centuries earlier.