The fifth planet from the sun, Jupiter is what watercolor dreams are made of. Vibrant bands of clouds ripple around its thick atmosphere, making up a world so large that more than 1, Earths could fit inside.
Its Great Red Spot seems to peer out from the swirling vapors like an enormous eye in the face of a striped giant. Though seemingly serene when viewed from the relative safety of our home world, Jupiter is a chaotic and stormy place. The gas giant planet's spots and swirls come from massive storms that whip up prevailing winds as fast as miles an hour at the equator—faster than any known winds on Earth.
That includes the Great Red Spot, which is a massive hurricane-like storm called an anticyclone. It's far bigger and longer lasting than any tempests that have ever raged across our planet's surface: It rotates in an ever-present oval that's more than the width of the entire Earth, although it has been shrinking for as long as humans have been observing it.
Jupiter is a massive ball of gas. Its clouds are composed of ammonia and water vapor drifting in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. The particular cloud chemistries are likely the magic behind the planet's vibrant colors, but the exact reasons for Jupiter's painted appearance remains unknown.
Below the gassy upper layers, the pressure and temperature increase so much that atoms of hydrogen eventually compress into a liquid. Pressures climb so high that the hydrogen loses its electrons, and the soupy mess can host an electrical charge, just like metal.
The planet's fast spin on its axis means that one Jupiter day lasts less than 10 Earth hours, and it sparks electrical currents that may drive the planet's intense and massive magnetic field, which is 16 to 54 times as powerful as Earth's.
Jupiter is the second brightest planet in the night sky, after Venus , which allowed early astronomers to spot and study the massive planet hundreds of years ago. In January , astronomer Galileo Galilei spotted what he thought were four small stars tagging along with Jupiter. These pinpricks of light are actually Jupiter's four largest moons, now known as the Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
Many of these celestial orbs are as remarkable as Jupiter itself. The largest moon in the solar system, Ganymede is also the only moon known to have its own magnetic field. Volcanoes rage on Io's surface, earning it the title of the solar system's most volcanically active body. And scientists believe Europa sports a deep, vast ocean beneath its icy crust , making it a top candidate in the hunt for alien life.
But these are not the planet's only celestial tag-alongs. Jupiter has dozens more—and there may still be more to find. Soon thereafter, the disk gas was removed by the intense early solar wind, before Saturn could grow to a similar size.
Brown dwarfs lack sufficient mass to shine, so they might more fairly be described as "failed stars. It is interesting to note, however, that more than half of all stars in the sky are part of a binary, triple, or higher multiple star system binaries being the most common. So the Sun is unusual in being a loner. Stellar formation is a hot topic of current research, as astronomers are trying to fathom the still-mysterious details of the birth process. Sign up for our email newsletter.
Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. This page showcases our resources for those interested in learning more about Jupiter.
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