presentation about jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from our Sun and is, by far, the largest planet in the solar system – more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. Jupiter's stripes and swirls are actually cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water, floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot is a giant storm bigger than Earth that has raged for hundreds of years.

Jupiter is surrounded by dozens of moons. Jupiter also has several rings, but unlike the famous rings of Saturn, Jupiter’s rings are very faint and made of dust, not ice.

Jupiter, being the biggest planet, gets its name from the king of the ancient Roman gods.

Potential for Life

Jupiter’s environment is probably not conducive to life as we know it. The temperatures, pressures, and materials that characterize this planet are most likely too extreme and volatile for organisms to adapt to.

While planet Jupiter is an unlikely place for living things to take hold, the same is not true of some of its many moons. Europa is one of the likeliest places to find life elsewhere in our solar system. There is evidence of a vast ocean just beneath its icy crust, where life could possibly be supported.

Size and Distance

With a radius of 43,440.7 miles (69,911 kilometers), Jupiter is 11 times wider than Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, Jupiter would be about as big as a basketball.

From an average distance of 484 million miles (778 million kilometers), Jupiter is 5.2 astronomical units away from the Sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes Sunlight 43 minutes to travel from the Sun to Jupiter.

Orbit and Rotation

Jupiter has the shortest day in the solar system. One day on Jupiter takes only about 10 hours (the time it takes for Jupiter to rotate or spin around once), and Jupiter makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year in Jovian time) in about 12 Earth years (4,333 Earth days).

Its equator is tilted with respect to its orbital path around the Sun by just 3 degrees. This means Jupiter spins nearly upright and does not have seasons as extreme as other planets do.

With four large moons and many smaller moons, Jupiter forms a kind of miniature solar system. Jupiter has 80 moons. Fifty-seven moons have been given official names by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Another 23 moons are awaiting names.

Jupiter's four largest moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – were first observed by the astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1610 using an early version of the telescope. These four moons are known today as the Galilean satellites, and they're some of the most fascinating destinations in our solar system. Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system (even bigger than the planet Mercury). Callisto’s very few small craters indicate a small degree of current surface activity. A liquid-water ocean with the ingredients for life may lie beneath the frozen crust of Europa, making it a tempting place to explore.

› More on Jupiter's Moons

Discovered in 1979 by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, Jupiter's rings were a surprise, as they are composed of small, dark particles and are difficult to see except when backlit by the Sun. Data from the Galileo spacecraft indicate that Jupiter's ring system may be formed by dust kicked up as interplanetary meteoroids smash into the giant planet's small innermost moons.

Jupiter took shape when the rest of the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become this gas giant. Jupiter took most of the mass left over after the formation of the Sun, ending up with more than twice the combined material of the other bodies in the solar system. In fact, Jupiter has the same ingredients as a star, but it did not grow massive enough to ignite.

About 4 billion years ago, Jupiter settled into its current position in the outer solar system, where it is the fifth planet from the Sun.

The composition of Jupiter is similar to that of the Sun – mostly hydrogen and helium. Deep in the atmosphere, pressure and temperature increase, compressing the hydrogen gas into a liquid. This gives Jupiter the largest ocean in the solar system – an ocean made of hydrogen instead of water. Scientists think that, at depths perhaps halfway to the planet's center, the pressure becomes so great that electrons are squeezed off the hydrogen atoms, making the liquid electrically conducting like metal. Jupiter's fast rotation is thought to drive electrical currents in this region, generating the planet's powerful magnetic field. It is still unclear if deeper down, Jupiter has a central core of solid material or if it may be a thick, super-hot and dense soup. It could be up to 90,032 degrees Fahrenheit (50,000 degrees Celsius) down there, made mostly of iron and silicate minerals (similar to quartz).

As a gas giant, Jupiter doesn’t have a true surface. The planet is mostly swirling gases and liquids. While a spacecraft would have nowhere to land on Jupiter, it wouldn’t be able to fly through unscathed either. The extreme pressures and temperatures deep inside the planet crush, melt, and vaporize spacecraft trying to fly into the planet.

Jupiter's appearance is a tapestry of colorful cloud bands and spots. The gas planet likely has three distinct cloud layers in its "skies" that, taken together, span about 44 miles (71 kilometers). The top cloud is probably made of ammonia ice, while the middle layer is likely made of ammonium hydrosulfide crystals. The innermost layer may be made of water ice and vapor.

The vivid colors you see in thick bands across Jupiter may be plumes of sulfur and phosphorus-containing gases rising from the planet's warmer interior. Jupiter's fast rotation – spinning once every 10 hours – creates strong jet streams, separating its clouds into dark belts and bright zones across long stretches.

With no solid surface to slow them down, Jupiter's spots can persist for many years. Stormy Jupiter is swept by over a dozen prevailing winds, some reaching up to 335 miles per hour (539 kilometers per hour) at the equator. The Great Red Spot, a swirling oval of clouds twice as wide as Earth, has been observed on the giant planet for more than 300 years. More recently, three smaller ovals merged to form the Little Red Spot, about half the size of its larger cousin.

Findings from NASA’s Juno probe released in October 2021 provide a fuller picture of what’s going on below those clouds. Data from Juno shows that Jupiter’s cyclones are warmer on top, with lower atmospheric densities, while they are colder at the bottom, with higher densities. Anticyclones, which rotate in the opposite direction, are colder at the top but warmer at the bottom.

The findings also indicate these storms are far taller than expected, with some extending 60 miles (100 kilometers) below the cloud tops and others, including the Great Red Spot, extending over 200 miles (350 kilometers). This surprising discovery demonstrates that the vortices cover regions beyond those where water condenses and clouds form, below the depth where sunlight warms the atmosphere.

The height and size of the Great Red Spot mean the concentration of atmospheric mass within the storm potentially could be detectable by instruments studying Jupiter’s gravity field. Two close Juno flybys over Jupiter’s most famous spot provided the opportunity to search for the storm’s gravity signature and complement the other results on its depth.

With their gravity data, the Juno team was able to constrain the extent of the Great Red Spot to a depth of about 300 miles (500 kilometers) below the cloud tops.

Belts and Zones In addition to cyclones and anticyclones, Jupiter is known for its distinctive belts and zones – white and reddish bands of clouds that wrap around the planet. Strong east-west winds moving in opposite directions separate the bands. Juno previously discovered that these winds, or jet streams, reach depths of about 2,000 miles (roughly 3,200 kilometers). Researchers are still trying to solve the mystery of how the jet streams form. Data collected by Juno during multiple passes reveal one possible clue: that the atmosphere’s ammonia gas travels up and down in remarkable alignment with the observed jet streams.

Juno’s data also shows that the belts and zones undergo a transition around 40 miles (65 kilometers) beneath Jupiter’s water clouds. At shallow depths, Jupiter’s belts are brighter in microwave light than the neighboring zones. But at deeper levels, below the water clouds, the opposite is true – which reveals a similarity to our oceans.

Polar Cyclones Juno previously discovered polygonal arrangements of giant cyclonic storms at both of Jupiter’s poles – eight arranged in an octagonal pattern in the north and five arranged in a pentagonal pattern in the south. Over time, mission scientists determined these atmospheric phenomena are extremely resilient, remaining in the same location.

Juno data also indicates that, like hurricanes on Earth, these cyclones want to move poleward, but cyclones located at the center of each pole push them back. This balance explains where the cyclones reside and the different numbers at each pole.

Magnetosphere

The Jovian magnetosphere is the region of space influenced by Jupiter's powerful magnetic field. It balloons 600,000 to 2 million miles (1 to 3 million kilometers) toward the Sun (seven to 21 times the diameter of Jupiter itself) and tapers into a tadpole-shaped tail extending more than 600 million miles (1 billion kilometers) behind Jupiter, as far as Saturn's orbit. Jupiter's enormous magnetic field is 16 to 54 times as powerful as that of the Earth. It rotates with the planet and sweeps up particles that have an electric charge. Near the planet, the magnetic field traps swarms of charged particles and accelerates them to very high energies, creating intense radiation that bombards the innermost moons and can damage spacecraft.

Jupiter's magnetic field also causes some of the solar system's most spectacular aurorae at the planet's poles.

• NASA Planetary Photojournal - Jupiter
• Planetary Rings Node
• NASA's Juno Mission

Jupiter 101

Jupiter is the oldest and most massive world in the solar system. Learn about the planet's origin story, its Great Red Spot and oceanic moons, and how this ancient world influenced the formation of the solar system's other planets.

Earth Science, Astronomy

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Web Producer

Last updated.

October 19, 2023

User Permissions

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service .

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

Related Resources

Planet Jupiter, explained

From its mysterious core to its stormy surface, there's plenty to learn about the fifth planet from the sun.

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 1,300 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 335 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.

Gas, liquid, or solid?

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.

Multitude of moons

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 1610, 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. In 2003 alone, astronomers identified 23 new moons. And in June of 2018, researchers discovered 12 more Jovian moons that wander in oddball paths around the giant world.

Missions to Jupiter

Since Galileo first laid telescope-enhanced eyes on Jupiter, scientists have continued to study the curious world from both the ground and the sky. In 1979, NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft zipped by the gas giant, taking tens of thousands of pictures as they passed by. Among the surprises from these missions, the data revealed that giant Jupiter sports thin, dusty rings.

And when NASA's Juno spacecraft began orbiting Jupiter in 2016, it quickly started sending back breathtaking images. The stunning pictures revealed that the planet is even more wild than we once thought. Juno returned some of the first detailed looks at the planet's poles , which revealed cyclone swarms gyrating on its surface with roots that likely extend deep below the upper bands of clouds .

Though Jupiter has been so intensely examined, many mysteries remain. One enduring question is what drives Jupiter's Great Red Spot, and what will happen to it in the future. Then there's the question of what actually lies at Jupiter's core. Magnetic field data from the Juno spacecraft suggest that the planet's core is surprisingly large and seems to be made of a partially dissolved solid material. Whatever that is, it's searing hot. Scientists estimate the temperature in this region could be up to 90,032 degrees Fahrenheit —hot enough to melt titanium.

For Hungry Minds

Related topics.

• SOLAR SYSTEM
• SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
• JUNO MISSION

You May Also Like

9 spectacular night sky events to see in 2024

4.5 billion years ago, another planet crashed into Earth. We may have found its leftovers.

Is there a 9th planet out there? We may soon find out.

Planet circling a burned-out star offers a glimpse at the solar system's fate

Planet 9 may be closer and easier to find than thought—if it exists

• Environment

History & Culture

• History & Culture
• History Magazine
• Mind, Body, Wonder
• Coronavirus Coverage
• Paid Content
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Your US State Privacy Rights
• Children's Online Privacy Policy
• Interest-Based Ads
• About Nielsen Measurement
• Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
• Nat Geo Home
• Attend a Live Event
• Book a Trip
• Inspire Your Kids
• Shop Nat Geo
• Visit the D.C. Museum
• Learn About Our Impact
• Support Our Mission
• Advertise With Us
• Customer Service
• Renew Subscription
• Manage Your Subscription
• Work at Nat Geo
• Sign Up for Our Newsletters
• Contribute to Protect the Planet

Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society Copyright © 2015-2024 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved

It’s a wonderful world — and universe — out there.

Come explore with us!  

Science News Explores

Let’s learn about jupiter.

This gas giant is home to a massive storm that has lasted hundreds of years

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot — a massive storm that has raged for hundreds of years — makes this gas giant instantly recognizable.

NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center) and M.H. Wong (Univ. of California, Berkeley)

Share this:

• Google Classroom

By Sarah Zielinski

May 27, 2020 at 6:30 am

If you went looking for a planet as different from Earth as you could find, you wouldn’t have to go all that far, at least in space terms. Just look to the fifth planet in our solar system, Jupiter. This gas giant  has no solid surface. Its diameter is more than 11 times as great as Earth’s. Its mass is more than twice than that of all the other planets in the solar system combined. Jupiter’s atmosphere is covered with bands of clouds and punctured by vast rotating storms . The most famous of these is the Great Red Spot , which is so big that Earth could fit inside it!

Jupiter is also a planet full of mysteries. Those thick bands of clouds hide what is happening inside the planet. Is there water? How much? And does Jupiter have a solid core? Studying the auroras at the poles could lead to insights about Jupiter’s magnetic fields. And then there’s the question of just what drives those monster storms.

Scientists have sent nine spacecraft to study Jupiter. The most recent was Juno , which arrived at the planet in July 2016. It will orbit this gas giant at least until July 2021. When the spacecraft is finally decommissioned, its Earth-bound pilots will send it on a path to plunge to its death into the Jovian atmosphere.

Want to know more? We’ve got some stories to get you started:

Jupiter may be the solar system’s oldest planet : Gas giant’s early existence may explain odd arrangement of planets in the solar system (6/28/2017) Readability: 7.9

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is really, really hot : The giant storm may help explain why the planet’s atmosphere is so warm (8/23/2016) Readability: 7.3

Jupiter has 12 more moons than we knew about — and one is a weirdo : The oddball moon, called Valetudo, may collide with its neighbors within a billion years (8/20/2018) Readability: 7.8

Explore more

Scientists Say: Gas giant

Scientists Say: Orbit

Explainer: What is a planet?

Cool Jobs: Careers on ice  

Build a scale model of the solar system to better understand the size and spacing of the planets, with this activity from the Lunar and Planetary Institute .

More Stories from Science News Explores on Planets

Let’s learn about meteorites

Huge polygons on Mars hint its equator may once have been frozen

Jupiter has a never-before-seen jet stream — and it’s speedy

Analyze This: Neptune’s cloud cover syncs up with the solar cycle

In a first, astronomers spot the aftermath of an exoplanet smashup

Four researchers on Earth are spending a year on ‘Mars’

Lightning dances through Jupiter’s skies much like it does on Earth 

In a first, telescopes have caught a star eating a planet

The Nine Planets

Jupiter Facts for Kids

Jupiter is a massive planet, twice the size of all other planets combined and has a centuries-old storm that is bigger than earth..

The planet Jupiter is named after the supreme Roman god. To the ancient Greeks, he was known as Zeus, ruler of the Greek gods, and Mount Olympus.

Key Facts & Summary

• Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the biggest planet of our Solar System. Some consider it a failed star since it is made out of swirling gases and liquids such as 90% hydrogen, and 10% helium – very similar to the Sun.
• Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the sky and one of the five visible planets ( Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn ).
• The envelope of gases – atmosphere – surrounding Jupiter is the largest planetary atmosphere in the Solar System. It makes up almost the entire planet. Basically, it doesn’t have a true surface with its atmosphere reaching altitudes of 5.000 km / 1.864 mi.
• Through the observations of Jupiter, the discovery of the four Galilean moons ended the belief that everything revolved around the Earth.
• Jupiter has a total of 79 confirmed moons. It is second only to Saturn when it comes to the total amount of satellites.
• Jupiter also has 3 ring systems but much smaller than Saturn’s.
• Though they can be seen only through ultraviolet, Jupiter’s auroras are the brightest in the Solar System.
• Jupiter has a mean radius of 69.911 kilometers / 43.440 miles, a diameter at the equator of around 142.984 km / 88.846 mi, and a diameter at the poles of 133.708 km / 83.082 mi.
• Jupiter’s mass is almost twice of all the Solar System’s planets combined. It is 318 times more massive than Earth.
• Jupiter is on average about 5.2 AU away from the Sun. One AU is equivalent to 150 million km / 93 million mi.
• Jupiter experiences 200 times more asteroid and comet impacts than Earth.
• In a way, Jupiter is the Solar System’s vacuum cleaner, because of its powerful gravity which attracts many of the comets and asteroids to hit it rather than other planets.

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet of the Solar System . It is more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined, being 318 times bigger than Earth .

The planet is very similar to a star, but it never got big enough to start burning. Jupiter has rings surrounding it, but they are very faint and hard to see.

It is the planet with the second-most moons, 79, after Saturn, who has 82. The closest planets to Jupiter are Mars and Saturn . The planet can be seen with the naked eye, you don’t need a telescope or a pair of binoculars to see it.

Surface and Structure

Jupiter is a gas giant, just like Saturn. It is made mostly out of hydrogen and helium. It doesn’t have a true surface, but it may have a solid core about the size of Earth at its center.

Jupiter is covered in swirling cloud stripes and has enormous storms like the Great Red Spot, which has been going on for hundreds of years.

The atmosphere is very thick, and it is made out of ammonia, sulfur, methane, and water vapor. Jupiter’s atmosphere is the largest planetary atmosphere in the Solar System. It makes up almost the entire planet.

Time on Jupiter

A day on Jupiter goes by very fast. It only lasts for about 10 hours. However, since it is farther away from the Sun than Earth, one year on Jupiter – the time it takes for it to circle the Sun once – is equal to 11.8 Earth years.

• If Jupiter would be 75 times more massive than it currently is, it would become a star just like our Sun.
• If you could somehow stand on Jupiter, and you would weigh 100 pounds on Earth, on Jupiter you would weigh 240 pounds due to the gravitational force. So basically, regardless of your weight, on Jupiter you would weigh 2.5 times more than on Earth.
• We don’t know how, but the ancient Babylonians wrote about Jupiter around 1.300 years ago. It may be the earliest recordings of the planet.
• Because Jupiter spins very fast, probably the fastest out of all the planets, it is flattened a bit so it bulges at its equator.
• The same speed gives power to Jupiter’s strong magnetic field which is around 20 times stronger than Earth’s. It is the most powerful magnetic field in the Solar System. 
• Jupiter is surrounded by dangerous waves of radiation, and this makes it hard for spacecraft to approach it.
• The red spot on Jupiter was first seen in 1665 by an Italian astronomer named Giovanni Cassini.
• If you could go down on Jupiter, the thin, cold atmosphere would become thicker and hotter until it turns into a thick, dark fog. The pressure further down is so great that the gases become liquid.

Size and Comparison

Jupiter has a mean radius of 69.911 kilometers / 43.440 miles, a diameter at the equator of around 142.984 km / 88.846 mi, and a diameter at the poles of 133.708 km / 83.082 mi. It is the biggest planet in the Solar System.

Compared to Earth, it has more than 11 times its diameter. Around 1.300 Earth’s would fit inside Jupiter’s volume. In comparison to Mercury, the smallest planet in the Solar System, it is more than 29 times its diameter. More than 24.462 Mercury’s would fit inside Jupiter’s volume.

Venus is similar to Earth in size, it has less than 11.8 times the diameter of Jupiter. Mars, on the other hand, has less than 20 times the diameter of Jupiter. Jupiter has around 2.8 times the diameter of Neptune and Uranus. In comparison to Saturn, it has 1.2 times its diameter.

More Mass, Less Size?

Though Jupiter is 2.5 times more massive than all the planets of the Solar System combine, scientists predict that if it would get more mass, the giant would actually get smaller.

More mass will make the planet more dense, and this would cause it to start pulling it in on itself. 

Is Jupiter a failed star?

Though some consider Jupiter a failed star, it doesn’t have enough mass to trigger a fusion reaction in its core. That is the mechanism of how stars generate energy, by fusing hydrogen under extreme heat and pressure to create helium, releasing light and heat in the process.

This means that Jupiter has no way of becoming a star unless it would gain around 75 times more mass than it currently has.

Jupiter generates more heat than it receives from the Sun

Since it is the most massive planet in the Solar System, it is the closest to being a star, at least in terms of mass. Because of this mass, Jupiter generates high amounts of heat as it shrinks under gravity. It is unknown when Jupiter will stop shrinking.

Other Characteristics

The winds on Jupiter are very powerful. They are trapped in the planet’s wide bands of latitude. Each of these bands has a slightly different chemical make-up and temperature.

Because of this, some of the bands have different colors. The light-colored bands are called “zones.” The dark-colored bands are called “belts”.

These clouds are different in color, depending on the altitude. Blue clouds are the lowest, followed by brown and white clouds. Red clouds are the highest.

The Great Red Spot is big enough to hold two Earths. It is a high-pressure region where clouds are much higher and colder than in the surrounding areas. Jupiter also has other spots, but they are far smaller. 

Jupiter is very bright in the night sky, second only to Venus . The four most important moons of Jupiter, called the Galilean moons, are also quite visible, but you would need a pair of binoculars to see them.

One of the most important moons of Jupiter is Europa. This moon may have water on it, and it is currently closely studied. Another interesting moon of Jupiter is Io, which is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System.

Scientists believe that Jupiter was twice its current size when it was formed. The giant planet is constantly bombarded with asteroids and comets, almost 200 times more than Earth.

Jupiter Notes

• Jupiter is the largest planet of the Solar System. It is the fifth planet from the Sun.
• Jupiter is a gas giant, and it lacks a true surface. It is made up of about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium.
• Jupiter has a faint ring system, and it is second in terms of the number of satellites only to Saturn. It has 79 moons, four of them, the Galilean moons, helped shape our view of the Universe.
• Jupiter’s moon Europa has many chances of developing life.
• Jupiter shrinks 2 centimeters every year because it radiates too much heat.

[2.] Wikipedia

Image sources:

• https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/system/feature_items/images/11_stsci-h-p1936a_800.jpg
• https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21772.jpg
• https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/rCdTVsPesASiv3JeVyhHsa-1200-80.jpg
• https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia22946-16.jpg
• https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/images/627807main_PIA14410_full.jpg

• Introduction
• History of the Name
• Structure and Surface
• Could Life Exist?
• Interesting Information
• Space Missions
• Pop Culture

Introduction:

Each time you look up to the sky and see a star you are looking at a sun in another galaxy. If you were on another planet looking back at our solar system, you would see our sun as a star.

It’s believed that every sun has planets orbiting it. Our Milky Way galaxy has more planets than it has stars. In our solar system we have eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are the inner rocky planets. Jupiter and Saturn are the outer gas giants.

Uranus and Neptune are the outer ice giants. In recent years, astronomers have designed a new class called the “dwarf planets.” These are smaller worlds, not quite big enough to be considered a standard planet, and include Pluto. Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun.

Jupiter Statistics:

• Distance from Sun:  483.8 million mi
• Radius:  43,441 mi
• Polar Diameter: 133,709 km
• Orbital period:  12 years
• Mass: 1.90 × 10^27 kg (318 Earths)
• Length of day:  0d 9h 56m
• Surface area:  23.71 billion mi²
• Effective Temperature: -148 °C
• Moons: (79, including (Io, Europa, Ganymede & Callisto)
• First Recorded : 7th-8th Century BCE by Babylonian astronomers

How did Jupiter get its name:

Jupiter was named after the Roman king of the gods. It’s the fifth planet from the sun in our solar system and the largest planet of all. To give you an idea of how big Jupiter is, you could line up 11 Earths, side-by-side just to stretch from one side of Jupiter to the other.

Jupiter’s mass is incredibly large as well and it would take 317 Earths to match the mass of Jupiter.

Around 4.5 billion years ago our solar system settled into the configuration that we know today. Jupiter settled in its position as the fifth planet about 4 billion years ago.

Gravity played a major part in creating the planets as it pulls dust and swirling gas together. Jupiter is one of the gas giants and it’s believed that it took most of the mass that was left after the sun was formed.

This is why Jupiter has over twice the materials of all of the other bodies in the solar system combined. Jupiter has the same ingredients as our own sun and if it had grown just a bit larger it would have ignited to become a second sun in our solar system.

Structure and Surface:

Jupiter is made up of a composition of mostly hydrogen and helium that is very similar to our sun. As a gas giant you have to go deep into the atmosphere to find that temperature and pressure has increased so much that it has compressed the hydrogen gas into a liquid form.

That hydrogen liquid gives Jupiter the largest ocean in the entire solar system. Scientists believe that nearing halfway to Jupiter’s center the pressure is so great that electrons are squeezed away from the hydrogen atoms.

This would put the liquid into a condition where it is electrically conductive, like metals. It’s thought that the fast rotation of the planet is enough to drive electrical currents in this area so that it generates the incredibly powerful magnetic field.

Scientists speculate that Jupiter’s interior is made up of three regions: a rocky core with a mass of between 12-45 times the size of the Earth that is made-up of mostly iron and silicate minerals.

It’s thought to be as hot as possibly 90,032 F/50,000 degrees C. The second region makes up most of Jupiter’s mass and it surrounds the core with a layer of liquid hydrogen that is electrically conductive.

The third region is made up of ordinary hydrogen with some helium traces and this transitions to the atmosphere of the planet.

Jupiter is a gas giant and as such, doesn’t really have what we would call a real “surface.” The planet is made up of gases and liquids that are constantly swirling around.

If we tried to send a spacecraft to Jupiter there wouldn’t be a place for it to land. A spacecraft would also be unable to fly due to the extreme temperatures and pressures that would crush, vaporize, and melt the spacecraft.

Jupiter’s storms are incredibly huge and they seem to be created on the edges of the darker and lighter horizontal bands of the planet.

The biggest storm is The Great Red Spot, and it’s nearing 25,000 km across. The Great Red Spot has been going on for centuries and is big enough to hold two Earths

Scientists have discovered that Jupiter actually gives off more energy than it receives from the sun.

They have figured out that Jupiter is so large that its mass exerts such an incredible gravitational force on itself that it compresses or squashes the planet. This process makes such a great quantity of heat that it becomes overloaded and throws it out into space.

As the fifth planet in the solar system, Jupiter is a tad more than five times the distance of the sun than Earth is.

A year for a planet is the amount of time that it takes to complete an orbit around the sun, and for Jupiter this takes 4,333 Earth days.

A day for a planet is the amount of time it takes to make one entire rotation and Jupiter sets the record in the solar system for a bit less than ten hours. The incredibly fast rotation that Jupiter has is what makes the bulge near its equator.

This bulge also makes it look less like a sphere. The sheer size of the planet and the fact that it’s mostly made up of gas, without a solid body, has created an odd situation in that not all parts of Jupiter rotate at the same time.

The rotation of Jupiter’s polar atmosphere rotates five minutes slower than that of the equator.

Atmosphere. Magnetosphere, and Moon Status:

Scientists have had a difficult time trying to define Jupiter’s atmosphere. This is due to the fact that its outer zone of gas changes into a liquid layer as you get closer into the planet.

They estimate that the atmospheric pressure on the “surface” of Jupiter is around ten times that at sea level on Earth.

The gases in the atmosphere are almost the same that make up our sun: 90% hydrogen and 10% helium.

There are a lot of colors in Jupiter’s cloud bands and spots, and may be plumes of sulfur and phosphorus-containing gases that rise from the intense heat of the interior of the planet. It’s thought that Jupiter has three distinct cloud layers that make up its “skies.”

When added together these cloud layers expand to around 44 mi/71 km. The top cloud layer is most likely made up of ammonia ice, the middle layer is likely to consist of ammonium hydrosulfide crystals, and the innermost layer may be vapor and water ice.

Jupiter’s incredibly fast rotation allows it to complete a rotation every 10 hours and this creates strong jet streams that separate the clouds into bright areas and dark belts for long stretches.

The “spots” on Jupiter are actually massive storms that can live for many years. As smaller storms form they are often engulfed by larger ones.

The prevailing winds can reach up to 335 mph/539 kph at the equator. The most well-known is The Great Red Spot which is a swirl of oval clouds twice as wide as our Earth.

We know that we have been observing this spot for over 300 years. Most recently three smaller oval storms merged together to form the Little Red Spot which is half the size of The Great Red Spot.

Scientists continue to study Jupiter and yet are unsure if these planet-circling bands and ovals are deeply rooted or shallow to the planet’s interior.

Jupiter has 79 confirmed moons and scientists have divided them up into three groups. The inner moons are those that are closest to Jupiter; the Galilean moons, Galileo Galilei; and Outer moons, these are the smallest and most distant from Jupiter.

The biggest of Jupiter’s moons is Ganymede and it’s also the biggest moon in the solar system. An interesting thing about Ganymede is that even though it’s a moon, it’s larger than the planet Mercury.

Europa is one of the large moons that many scientists are interested in because they believe that there might be a liquid-water ocean beneath the frozen crust.

Jupiter has other large moons including Callisto and Io. It’s thought that Jupiter has enough moons that it could be a miniature solar system.

Jupiter has a powerful magnetic field that balloons 600,000 to 2 million mi/1-3 million km toward the sun.

This is 7-21 times the diameter of Jupiter itself and the field tapers into a tadpole-shaped tail that extends out behind the planet more than 600 million mi/1 billion km.

This extension goes as far as the orbit of Saturn. The intense magnetic field of Jupiter is 16-54 times as powerful as the magnetic field of Earth and rotates with the planet, picking up any particles that have an electric charge.

The magnetic field traps swarms of charged particles near the planet and then speeds them up to extremely high energies, creating high intensity radiation that bombards the innermost moons.

It’s this radiation that can cause a lot of damage to any spacecraft and why much of the exploration of Jupiter is often done from a distance. The magnetic field does create some of the most beautiful aurorae at its poles.

In 1979 the NASA Voyager 1 spacecraft discovered a ring around Jupiter. This discovery was a surprise because they are made up of small dark particles that are almost impossible to see except when they are backlit by the sun.

Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft confirmed that the ring of Jupiter is probably formed by dust kicked up as meteoroids crash into the many moons that orbit Jupiter.

Could Life Exist on Jupiter?

The environment within Jupiter is not conducive to life as we know it. The pressures and temperatures, along with materials of Jupiter are too volatile and extreme for life to adapt to.

While Jupiter itself can’t be a location for life, some of its moons could be. Europa is thought to be one of the likeliest places that life may be found anywhere in our solar system so far.

Evidence is showing that there is a huge ocean beneath Europa’s crust with liquid water that could possible support life.

Interesting Information:

Jupiter’s intense magnetic field is thought to be a contributing factor in protecting Earth from a worse bombardment of meteorites.

As meteorites enter the solar system from the exterior areas they are caught up by Jupiter before they have a chance to get close to Earth.

Space Missions to Jupiter:

Jupiter has been studied for many years, with the first observations detailed in 1610 by Galileo Galilei. Since then, we have sent a number of spacecraft, probes, and orbiters to take detailed images and collect data from Jupiter.

In the 1970’s we sent Pioneer 10 and 11 as well as Voyager 1 and 2 for flybys of Jupiter. The Galileo spacecraft orbited the gas giant and sent a probe into the atmosphere.

When Cassini was heading to Saturn it took an array of images of Jupiter, and New Horizon did the same as it headed to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. In 2016 NASA’s June spacecraft arrived in the Jovian system to study the gas giant in orbit.

• 1610: Galileo Galilei creates his Jupiter observations.
• 1973: Pioneer 10 is the first spacecraft to get through the asteroid belt and does a flyby passed Jupiter.
• 1979: Voyager 1 and 2 missions find the faint rings of Jupiter, a number of new moons that were not know about before and the fact that Io has volcanic activity.
• 1992: Ulysses mission does a swing by so that the gravity bent the flight path of the spacraft allowing the probe to a last orbit that took it over the south and north poles of the sun.
• 1994: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 enters Jupiter’s atmosphere, breaks up and then crashes into Jupiter.
• 1995-2003: The Galileo spacecraft places a probe into the atmosphere of Jupiter to accomplish observations of the planet and its rings and moons.
• 2000: Cassini’s close approach to Jupiter enables it to take full color photos of Jupiter.
• 2007: NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft takes pictures of Jupiter on its way to Pluto. The pictures offer new information and data on the atmospheric storms on Jupiter, it’s rings, Io’s volcanic activity and the ice on Europa.
• 2016: NASA’s Juno spacecraft arrives at Jupiter and conducts studies of the planets magnetosphere, atmosphere, and deep structure to help understand Jupiter’s evolution and origin.

Facts about Jupiter for Kids:

• If Jupiter had been 80 times more massive it would have become our second sun in the solar system.
• Jupiter holds the title of being the solar system’s fourth brightest object.
• Jupiter’s clouds are made up of mostly ammonia crystals, sulfur and mixtures of both of these.
• As asteroids and comets have impacted Jupiter they kick up dust particles that have created a very faint ring around Jupiter.
• The discovery of Jupiter’s 4 moons by Galileo was the first proof that the Earth was not the center of the universe and evidence that planets orbited the sun.
• We can only see five planets with the naked eye and Jupiter is one of them.

Pop Culture:

Jupiter has made a presence in many television shows, movies, comics, and video games. In the science fiction “Jupiter Ascending” it was the main destination. Jupiter’s moons have also been noted in “Cloud Atlas, Futurama, Power Rangers, and Halo.”

You might remember “Men in Black” when Will Smith, playing Agent J, comments that he thought his teacher was from Venus and Tommy Lee Jones, playing Agent K, corrects him to say that she was really from one of Jupiter’s Moons.

In the movie “2010: The Year we Make Contact,” Jupiter was ignited to become the second sun in our solar system and its moon Io was to be left alone to allow life to progress.

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/jupiter/overview/

• TERRESTRIAL PLANETS

• Planets News

Got any suggestions?

We want to hear from you! Send us a message and help improve Slidesgo

Top searches

Trending searches

memorial day

12 templates

17 templates

26 templates

20 templates

american history

73 templates

11 templates

Planet Jupiter Minitheme

Planet jupiter minitheme presentation, premium google slides theme and powerpoint template.

Tell us that you use Slidesgo without telling us you use Slidesgo. "Jupiter is a gas giant and the biggest planet in the Solar System." Outstanding! "It's the fourth-brightest object in the night sky." Excellent! "It was named after the Roman god of the skies and lightning." Superb! This minitheme dedicated to planet Jupiter is tailor-made for you. Talk about this enormous planet and make the most of the design of these slides: lots of illustrations included!

Features of this template

• 100% editable and easy to modify
• 20 different slides to impress your audience
• Contains easy-to-edit graphics such as graphs, maps, tables, timelines and mockups
• Includes 500+ icons and Flaticon’s extension for customizing your slides
• Designed to be used in Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint
• 16:9 widescreen format suitable for all types of screens
• Includes information about fonts, colors, and credits of the resources used

What are the benefits of having a Premium account?

What Premium plans do you have?

What can I do to have unlimited downloads?

Don’t want to attribute Slidesgo?

Gain access to over 23200 templates & presentations with premium from 1.67€/month.

Are you already Premium? Log in

Related posts on our blog

How to Add, Duplicate, Move, Delete or Hide Slides in Google Slides

How to Change Layouts in PowerPoint

How to Change the Slide Size in Google Slides

Related presentations.

Premium template

Unlock this template and gain unlimited access

Register for free and start editing online

Suggested Searches

• Climate Change
• Expedition 64
• Mars perseverance
• SpaceX Crew-2
• International Space Station
• View All Topics A-Z

Humans in Space

Earth & climate.

• The Solar System

The Universe

Aeronautics, learning resources, news & events.

NASA/JAXA’s XRISM Mission Captures Unmatched Data With Just 36 Pixels

NASA Scientists Gear Up for Solar Storms at Mars

NASA Uses Small Engine to Enhance Sustainable Jet Research

• Search All NASA Missions
• A to Z List of Missions
• Upcoming Launches and Landings
• Spaceships and Rockets
• Communicating with Missions
• James Webb Space Telescope
• Hubble Space Telescope
• Why Go to Space
• Astronauts Home
• Commercial Space
• Destinations
• Living in Space
• Explore Earth Science
• Earth, Our Planet
• Earth Science in Action
• Earth Multimedia
• Earth Science Researchers
• Pluto & Dwarf Planets
• Asteroids, Comets & Meteors
• The Kuiper Belt
• The Oort Cloud
• Skywatching
• The Search for Life in the Universe
• Black Holes
• The Big Bang
• Dark Energy & Dark Matter
• Earth Science
• Planetary Science
• Astrophysics & Space Science
• The Sun & Heliophysics
• Biological & Physical Sciences
• Lunar Science
• Citizen Science
• Astromaterials
• Aeronautics Research
• Human Space Travel Research
• Science in the Air
• NASA Aircraft
• Flight Innovation
• Supersonic Flight
• Air Traffic Solutions
• Green Aviation Tech
• Drones & You
• Technology Transfer & Spinoffs
• Space Travel Technology
• Technology Living in Space
• Manufacturing and Materials
• Science Instruments
• For Kids and Students
• For Educators
• For Colleges and Universities
• For Professionals
• Science for Everyone
• Requests for Exhibits, Artifacts, or Speakers
• STEM Engagement at NASA
• NASA's Impacts
• Centers and Facilities
• Directorates
• Organizations
• People of NASA
• Internships
• Our History
• Doing Business with NASA
• Get Involved
• Aeronáutica
• Ciencias Terrestres
• Sistema Solar
• All NASA News
• Video Series on NASA+
• Newsletters
• Social Media
• Media Resources
• Upcoming Launches & Landings
• Virtual Events
• Sounds and Ringtones
• Interactives
• STEM Multimedia

Hubble Hunts Visible Light Sources of X-Rays

Hi-C Rocket Experiment Achieves Never-Before-Seen Look at Solar Flares

NASA Selects Students for Europa Clipper Intern Program

NASA Mission Strengthens 40-Year Friendship 

NASA Selects Commercial Service Studies to Enable Mars Robotic Science

NASA’s Commercial Partners Deliver Cargo, Crew for Station Science

NASA Is Helping Protect Tigers, Jaguars, and Elephants. Here’s How.

Two Small NASA Satellites Will Measure Soil Moisture, Volcanic Gases

NASA-Led Study Provides New Global Accounting of Earth’s Rivers

Orbits and Kepler’s Laws

X-ray Satellite XMM-Newton Sees ‘Space Clover’ in a New Light

Researchers Develop ‘Founding Document’ on Synthetic Cell Development

NASA Photographer Honored for Thrilling Inverted In-Flight Image

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Team Says Goodbye … for Now

Big Science Drives Wallops’ Upgrades for NASA Suborbital Missions

Tech Today: Stay Safe with Battery Testing for Space

NASA Grant Brings Students at Underserved Institutions to the Stars

Washington State High Schooler Wins 2024 NASA Student Art Contest

NASA’s Commitment to Safety Starts with its Culture

NASA Challenge Gives Space Thruster Commercial Boost

Diez maneras en que los estudiantes pueden prepararse para ser astronautas

Astronauta de la NASA Marcos Berríos

Resultados científicos revolucionarios en la estación espacial de 2023

Nasa’s webb discovers new feature in jupiter’s atmosphere, nasa webb telescope team, image: webb's view of jupiter, image: jupiter's equatorial jet stream, image: jupiter's winds, image: zoom in on webb's view of jupiter, media contacts, related information.

Narrow jet stream near equator has winds traveling 320 miles per hour

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a new, never-before-seen feature in Jupiter’s atmosphere. The high-speed jet stream, which spans more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) wide, sits over Jupiter’s equator above the main cloud decks. The discovery of this jet is giving insights into how the layers of Jupiter’s famously turbulent atmosphere interact with each other, and how Webb is uniquely capable of tracking those features.

“This is something that totally surprised us,” said Ricardo Hueso of the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain, lead author on the paper describing the findings. “What we have always seen as blurred hazes in Jupiter’s atmosphere now appear as crisp features that we can track along with the planet’s fast rotation.”

The research team analyzed data from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured in July 2022 . The Early Release Science program – jointly led by Imke de Pater from the University of California, Berkeley and Thierry Fouchet from the Observatory of Paris – was designed to take images of Jupiter 10 hours apart, or one Jupiter day, in four different filters, each uniquely able to detect changes in small features at different altitudes of Jupiter’s atmosphere.

“Even though various ground-based telescopes, spacecraft like NASA’s Juno and Cassini, and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have observed the Jovian system’s changing weather patterns, Webb has already provided new findings on Jupiter’s rings, satellites, and its atmosphere,” de Pater noted.

While Jupiter is different from Earth in many ways – Jupiter is a gas giant, Earth is a rocky, temperate world – both planets have layered atmospheres. Infrared, visible, radio, and ultraviolet light wavelengths observed by these other missions detect the lower, deeper layers of the planet’s atmosphere – where gigantic storms and ammonia ice clouds reside.

On the other hand, Webb’s look farther into the near-infrared than before is sensitive to the higher-altitude layers of the atmosphere, around 15-30 miles (25-50 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops. In near-infrared imaging, high-altitude hazes typically appear blurry, with enhanced brightness over the equatorial region. With Webb, finer details are resolved within the bright hazy band.

The newly discovered jet stream travels at about 320 miles per hour (515 kilometers per hour), twice the sustained winds of a Category 5 hurricane here on Earth. It is located around 25 miles (40 kilometers) above the clouds, in Jupiter’s lower stratosphere .

By comparing the winds observed by Webb at high altitudes, to the winds observed at deeper layers from Hubble, the team could measure how fast the winds change with altitude and generate wind shears.

While Webb’s exquisite resolution and wavelength coverage allowed for the detection of small cloud features used to track the jet , the complementary observations from Hubble taken one day after the Webb observations were also crucial to determine the base state of Jupiter’s equatorial atmosphere and observe the development of convective storms in Jupiter’s equator not connected to the jet.  

“We knew the different wavelengths of Webb and Hubble would reveal the three-dimensional structure of storm clouds, but we were also able to use the timing of the data to see how rapidly storms develop,” added team member Michael Wong of the University of California, Berkeley, who led the associated Hubble observations .

The researchers are looking forward to additional observations of Jupiter with Webb to determine if the jet’s speed and altitude change over time.

“Jupiter has a complicated but repeatable pattern of winds and temperatures in its equatorial stratosphere, high above the winds in the clouds and hazes measured at these wavelengths,” explained team member Leigh Fletcher of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. “If the strength of this new jet is connected to this oscillating stratospheric pattern, we might expect the jet to vary considerably over the next 2 to 4 years – it’ll be really exciting to test this theory in the years to come.”

“It’s amazing to me that, after years of tracking Jupiter’s clouds and winds from numerous observatories, we still have more to learn about Jupiter, and features like this jet can remain hidden from view until these new NIRCam images were taken in 2022,” continued Fletcher.

The researchers’ results were recently published in Nature Astronomy.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

Laura Betz – [email protected] NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Hannah Braun – [email protected] , Christine Pulliam – [email protected] Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

Download full resolution images for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Research results published in Nature Astronomy.

NASA’s Jupiter Website – https://science.nasa.gov/jupiter/

NASA’s Solar System Website – https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/

More Webb News – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/latestnews/

More Webb Images – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/multimedia/images/

Webb Mission Page – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/

Esta Artículo en español

Ciencia de la NASA

NASA en español 

Space Place para niños

Related Topics

Our Solar System

Overview Our planetary system is located in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. We call it the…

The solar system has eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. There are five officially recognized…

Related Terms

• James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
• Goddard Space Flight Center

jupiter powerpoint

All Formats

Resource types, all resource types.

• Rating Count
• Price (Ascending)
• Price (Descending)
• Most Recent

Jupiter powerpoint

Solar System and Planets PowerPoint (Earth, Mars Jupiter , Saturn, etc.)

The Solar System: Planet Jupiter Research Unit with PowerPoint

Outer Planets Lesson- Saturn, Jupiter Notes Activity and Slides Space Lesson

Exploring Jupiter and the Galilean Moons ( PowerPoint and Mission Notes brochure)

Astronomy Unit V Lesson I PowerPoint " Jupiter "

Orbiting Jupiter Digital Journal | Writing Responses | Google Slides

• Google Slides™

Jupiter : Animated Keynote/ PPT Presentation, Colorful Science Solar System

• Keynote Presentation File

Astronomy - Outer Planets (Gas Giants); Jupiter , Saturn, Uranus, Neptune ( PPT )

Jupiter Digital Cyber Hunt for Google Slides Distance Learning

• Internet Activities

Space Vol. 6 - Jupiter and Saturn - PowerPoint Presentation Slideshow

Jupiter & Saturn Slides and Questions

JUPITER VIDEO & SONG: Animated Keynote/ PPT , Colorful Science Solar System

Jupiter Powerpoint Presentation

Student Note Guide PPT Unit V Lesson I “ Jupiter ”

• Word Document File

Jupiter Powerpoint

Free Note Sheet for The Moons of Jupiter PPT

Solar System: Space Digital Activities for Google Slides ™

• Google Apps™

Solar System ( powerpoint , planet book & guided notes)

Solar System PowerPoint Slides With Guided Notes

Astronomy Earth Moon & Solar System Presentation PPT with Student Summary Notes

Solar System Bundle - PowerPoint , Reading Comprehension, Interactive Notebooks

Solar System | Planets | PowerPoint | The Sun | The Moon | Distance Learning

Solar System - POWERPOINT WITH NOTES 4th Grade Science

• We're hiring
• Help & FAQ
• Privacy policy
• Student privacy
• Terms of service
• Tell us what you think

NASA’s Juno Finds Jupiter’s Winds Penetrate in Cylindrical Layers

NASA’s Juno captured this view of Jupiter during the mission’s 54th close flyby of the giant planet on Sept. 7. The image was made with raw data from the JunoCam instrument that was processed to enhance details in cloud features and colors.

The finding offers deeper insights into the long-debated internal structure of the gas giant.

Gravity data collected by NASA’s Juno mission indicates Jupiter’s atmospheric winds penetrate the planet in a cylindrical manner, parallel to its spin axis. A paper on the findings was recently published in the journal Nature Astronomy .

The violent nature of Jupiter’s roiling atmosphere has long been a source of fascination for astronomers and planetary scientists, and Juno has had a ringside seat to the goings-on since it entered orbit in 2016 . During each of the spacecraft’s 55 to date, a suite of science instruments has peered below Jupiter’s turbulent cloud deck to uncover how the gas giant works from the inside out.

One way the Juno mission learns about the planet’s interior is via radio science. Using NASA’s Deep Space Network antennas, scientists track the spacecraft’s radio signal as Juno flies past Jupiter at speeds near 130,000 mph (209,000 kph), measuring tiny changes in its velocity – as small as 0.01 millimeter per second. Those changes are caused by variations in the planet’s gravity field, and by measuring them, the mission can essentially see into Jupiter’s atmosphere.

Such measurements have led to numerous discoveries, including the existence of a dilute core deep within Jupiter and the depth of the planet’s zones and belts , which extend from the cloud tops down approximately 1,860 miles (3,000 kilometers).

Doing the Math

To determine the location and cylindrical nature of the winds, the study’s authors applied a mathematical technique that models gravitational variations and surface elevations of rocky planets like Earth. At Jupiter, the technique can be used to accurately map winds at depth. Using the high-precision Juno data, the authors were able to generate a four-fold increase in the resolution over previous models created with data from NASA’s trailblazing Jovian explorers Voyager and Galileo.

This illustration depicts findings that Jupiter’s atmospheric winds penetrate the planet in a cylindrical manner and parallel to its spin axis. The most dominant jet recorded by NASA’s Juno is shown in the cutout: The jet is at 21 degrees north latitude at cloud level, but 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) below that, it’s at 13 degrees north latitude.

“We applied a constraining technique developed for sparse data sets on terrestrial planets to process the Juno data,” said Ryan Park, a Juno scientist and lead of the mission’s gravity science investigation from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “This is the first time such a technique has been applied to an outer planet.”

The measurements of the gravity field matched a two-decade-old model that determined Jupiter’s powerful east-west zonal flows extend from the cloud-level white and red zones and belts inward. But the measurements also revealed that rather than extending in every direction like a radiating sphere, the zonal flows go inward, cylindrically, and are oriented along the direction of Jupiter’s rotation axis. How Jupiter’s deep atmospheric winds are structured has been in debated since the 1970s, and the Juno mission has now settled the debate.

Get the Latest JPL News

“All 40 gravity coefficients measured by Juno matched our previous calculations of what we expect the gravity field to be if the winds penetrate inward on cylinders,” said Yohai Kaspi of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, the study’s lead author and a Juno co-investigator. “When we realized all 40 numbers exactly match our calculations, it felt like winning the lottery.”

Along with bettering the current understanding of Jupiter’s internal structure and origin, the new gravity model application could be used to gain more insight into other planetary atmospheres.

Find out where Juno is right now with NASA’s interactive Eyes on the Solar System . With its blades stretching out some 66 feet (20 meters), the spacecraft is a dynamic engineering marvel, spinning to keep itself stable as it orbits Jupiter and flies by some of the planet’s moons. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Juno is currently in an extended mission. Along with flybys of Jupiter, the solar-powered spacecraft has completed a series of flybys of the planet’s icy moons Ganymede and Europa and is in the midst of several close flybys of Io. The Dec. 30 flyby of Io will be the closest to date, coming within about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of its volcano-festooned surface.

“As Juno’s journey progresses, we’re achieving scientific outcomes that truly define a new Jupiter and that likely are relevant for all giant planets, both within our solar system and beyond,” said Scott Bolton, the principal investigator of the Juno mission at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “The resolution of the newly determined gravity field is remarkably similar to the accuracy we estimated 20 years ago. It is great to see such agreement between our prediction and our results.”

More About the Mission

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott J. Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.

More information about Juno is available at:

https://www.nasa.gov/juno

News Media Contact

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-393-9011

[email protected]

Karen Fox / Alana Johnson

NASA Headquarters, Washington

301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501

[email protected] / [email protected]

Dana Bernstein

Weizmann Institute of Science

972-8-934-3856

[email protected]

• What is Career Pathways?
• Architecture, Manufacturing , Natural Resources and Agriculture
• Arts, Communications, Media and Marketing
• Business, Public Service and Tourism
• Healthcare and Health Sciences
• Human Services, Consulting and Education
• Artificial Intelligence
• Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
• First & Second Year Students
• First Generation Students
• International Students
• Students With Disabilities
• Veteran Students
• Experience Changes Everything
• Featured Jobs
• Featured Internships
• Expand Your Network / Mentor
• Explore Your Interests / Self Assessment
• Job Market Data
• Negotiate an Offer
• Prepare for an Interview
• Prepare for Graduate School
• Search for a Job / Internship
• Academic Job Search Documents
• Create a Resume
• Create a Curriculum Vitae (CV)
• Create a Cover Letter
• Learn about Portfolios
• Learn all about LinkedIn
• Write a Personal Statement
• Professional Communication
• Molm Family Gator Career Career Closet
• Career Fairs
• Career Planning Appointments
• Career Prep Process
• Career Readiness Check-in
• Express Drop-In
• Industry Connections
• What Can I Do With This Major?

Biotech Career Trek to Jupiter, FL: Alphazyme and UF Scripps

• Share This: Share Biotech Career Trek to Jupiter, FL: Alphazyme and UF Scripps on Facebook Share Biotech Career Trek to Jupiter, FL: Alphazyme and UF Scripps on LinkedIn Share Biotech Career Trek to Jupiter, FL: Alphazyme and UF Scripps on X

Attention aspiring biotechnologists! Are you ready to step out of the classroom and into the laboratory? The Career Connections Center has an opportunity to ignite your career with our biotech/biopharma site visit to Jupiter, FL. On this site visit we will be touring UF Scripps and Alphazyme (an enzyme creator and manufacturer) to learn about their labs, research roles, and full-time work after graduation in the industry.

Some reasons to participate in this site visit are:

• Elevate Your Learning Experience
• Expand Your Network
• Gain Practical Insights

Date: Friday, May 17, 2024

Travel: We will provide van transportation from Gainesville, or you can meet us at each site.

To Register: Please complete the form at Qualtrics survey:

https://ufl.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1zVDMZWI0KXEcv4

Please note there are a limited number of spots available on this career trek. You will be notified if selected to attend by Monday, May 13.

If you have any questions about this Career Trek, please email [email protected] or call 352-273-2329.

One more step:

Spread the word by sharing this event with your social networks, save it to your calendar, add to calendar.

What is a Gas Giant?

A giant planet composed mainly of gas

A gas giant is a large planet mostly composed of helium and/or hydrogen. These planets, like Jupiter and Saturn in our solar system, don’t have hard surfaces and instead have swirling gases above a solid core. Gas giant exoplanets can be much larger than Jupiter, and much closer to their stars than anything found in our solar system.

For most of human history our understanding of how planets form and evolve was based on the eight planets in our solar system. But over the last 25 years, the discovery of more than 5,600 exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system, changed all that.

Gas giants, like Jupiter or Saturn in our solar system, are composed mostly of helium and/or hydrogen. Gas giants nearer to their stars are often called “hot Jupiters.” More variety is hidden within these broad categories. Hot Jupiters, for instance, were among the first exoplanet types found – gas giants like Jupiter, yes, but orbiting so close to their stars that their temperatures soar into the thousands of degrees (Fahrenheit or Celsius). These large planets make such tight orbits that they cause a pronounced “wobble” in their stars, tugging their stellar hosts this way and that, and causing a measurable shift in the spectrum of light from the stars. That made hot Jupiters easier to detect in the early days of planet hunting using the radial velocity method.

Similar in size to Jupiter, these gas-dominated planets orbit extremely close to their parent stars, circling them in as few as 18 hours. We have nothing like them in our own solar system, where the closest planets to the Sun are rocky and orbiting much farther away. The questions about hot Jupiters are as big as the planets themselves: Do they form close to their stars or farther away before migrating inward? And if these giants do migrate, what would that reveal about the history of the planets in our own solar system?

To answer those questions, scientists will need to observe many of these hot giants very early in their formation. The detection of the exoplanet HIP 67522 b , thought to be the youngest hot Jupiter ever found (in June 2020), could expand our understanding. It orbits a well-studied star that is about 17 million years old, meaning the hot Jupiter is likely only a few million years younger, whereas most known hot Jupiters are more than a billion years old. The planet takes about seven days to orbit its star, which has a mass similar to the Sun's. Located only about 490 light-years from Earth, HIP 67522 b is about 10 times the diameter of Earth, or close to that of Jupiter. Its size strongly indicates that it is a gas-dominated planet.

The discovery offers hope for finding more young hot Jupiters and learning more about how planets form throughout the universe.

5 Key Gas Giant Facts (with artists' concepts of these alien worlds)

First of many

51 Peg b was the first planet discovered around a Sun-like star in 1995.

Deadline pressure

It is thought they form within the first 10 million years of a Sun-like star's life…or not at all.

Hot, hot, hot

Hot Jupiters orbit so close to their stars that their temperatures soar into the thousands of degrees.

And hottest of all

KELT-9 b, the hottest gas giant found so far, is hotter than most stars.

Jupiter has a twin, and it orbits a star that’s a twin of our Sun.

Migrating Giants?

There are three main hypotheses for how hot Jupiters get so close to their parent stars. One is that they simply form there and stay put. But it's hard to imagine planets forming in such an intense environment. Not only would the scorching heat vaporize most materials, but young stars frequently erupt with massive explosions and stellar winds, potentially dispersing emerging planets.

It could be more likely that gas giants develop farther from their parent star, past a boundary called the snow line, where it's cool enough for ice and other solid materials to form. Jupiter-like planets are composed almost entirely of gas, but they contain solid cores. It would be easier for those cores to form past the snow line, where frozen materials could cling together like a growing snowball.

The other two hypotheses assume this is the case, and that hot Jupiters then wander closer to their stars. But what would be the cause and timing of the migration?

One idea posits that hot Jupiters begin their journey early in the planetary system's history while the star is still surrounded by the disk of gas and dust from which both it and the planet formed. In this scenario, the gravity of the disk interacting with the mass of the planet could interrupt the gas giant's orbit and cause it to migrate inward.

The third hypothesis maintains that hot Jupiters get close to their star later, when the gravity of other planets around the star can drive the migration. The fact that HIP 67522 b is already so close to its star so early after its formation indicates that this third hypothesis probably doesn't apply in this case. But one young hot Jupiter isn't enough to settle the debate on how they all form.

Developing with the stars

In 2007, astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope found evidence showing that gas-giant planets form quickly, within the first 10 million years of a Sun-like star's life.

Gas giants could get their start in the gas-rich debris disk that surrounds a young star. A core produced by collisions among asteroids and comets provides a seed, and when this core reaches sufficient mass, its gravitational pull rapidly attracts gas from the disk to form the planet.

Scientists using Spitzer and ground-based telescopes searched for traces of gas around 15 different Sun-like stars, most with ages ranging from 3 million to 30 million years. With the help of Spitzer's infrared spectrometer instrument, they were able to search for relatively warm gas in the inner regions of these star systems, an area comparable to the zone between Earth and Jupiter in our own solar system. They also used ground-based radio telescopes to search for cooler gas in the outer regions of these systems, an area comparable to the zone around Saturn and beyond.

All of the stars in the study, including those as young as a few million years, have less than 10 percent of Jupiter's mass in gas swirling around them. This indicates that gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn have already formed in these young planetary systems, or they never will.

Explore the planet types: Gas Giant , Neptune-like , Super-Earth and Terrestrial

Or move on to the building blocks of galaxies: stars!

More to Explore

Flares of Fury Poster

Located less than 32 light-years from Earth, AU Microscopii is among the youngest planetary systems ever observed by astronomers, and its star throws vicious temper tantrums!

Llamaradas de Furia

Ubicado a menos de 32 años luz de la Tierra, AU Microscopii se encuentra entre los sistemas planetarios más jóvenes jamás observados por los astrónomos, ¡y su estrella tiene unas brutales rabietas!

Rains of Terror Poster

This far-off blue planet may look like a friendly haven – but don’t be deceived! Weather here is deadly. The cobalt color comes from a hazy, blow-torched atmosphere containing clouds laced with glass.

Lluvia de Terror

Este planeta lejano puede parecer un refugio amigable… ¡pero no te dejes engañar! ¡El clima en este mundo es mortal! ¡El color azul cobalto del planeta proviene de una atmósfera brumosa e incendiaria que contiene nubes de cristales de vidrio!

Discover More Topics From NASA

Search for Life

Black Holes

Fact Check: This 'Amazing Shot of Jupiter' Was Allegedly Taken with an Ordinary Digital Camera. Here's What We Know

A photograph taken with a Nikon Z 8 camera and shared online in April 2024 shows an authentic close-up view of Jupiter.

Miscaptioned ( About this rating? )

On April 18, 2024, a photograph was shared to X (formerly Twitter), allegedly showing a close-up photograph of Jupiter. "Using my Nikon Z 8, I captured this amazing shot of Jupiter," the post read. "Looks like your coffee table, but it's as good as anything NASA puts out," one user commented under the post.

(X user @AlwaysFrosted2)

However, Google reverse-image search results  showed the photograph was first shared on Reddit in 2018. Its caption at that time described it as "a stone slab that looks like Jupiter's storms." In the comment, the original poster specified that the stone in the photo was Brentwood, "a quartzite sandstone from Tennessee," known for looking like petrified wood. Moreover, it's worth noting that the Nikon Z 8 camera was not released until May 2023. Therefore, we have rated this claim as "Miscaptioned."

We did locate an authentic close-up photograph of Jupiter captured in 1979, showing its Great Red Spot, on Getty Images:

Voyager 1's image of a close up of the turbulent region around the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, a storm that has been raging for hundreds of years. The white spot shows another cloud system that appears to have formed around 1940. Two Voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977 to explore the planets in the outer solar system. Voyager 1 flew past Jupiter at 278,000 kilometres in March 1979 before flying on to Saturn. (Photo by Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images)

(Getty Images)

We have fact-checked other Jupiter-related topics. In January 2022 we investigated whether a time-lapse video showed the moons Europa and Io orbiting Jupiter. In August 2021, we fact-checked a photograph allegedly showing what Jupiter would look like if viewed from its south pole. We have also written an article on a photograph taken in the summer of 2020, reportedly showing Jupiter in the sky surrounded by its four largest moons.

Liles, Jordan. "Does Time-Lapse Video Show Europa and Io Orbiting Jupiter?" Snopes , 28 Jan. 2022, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/europa-io-jupiter-video/ .

Nikon Releases the Z 8 Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera | News | Nikon About Us . https://www.nikon.com/company/news/2023/0510_mirrorless_01.html . Accessed 22 Apr. 2024.

Palma, Bethania. "Does a Photo Show Jupiter and Its Four Moons?" Snopes , 26 Nov. 2020, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/jupiter-moons/ .

---. "Does This Pic Show What Jupiter's Southern Pole Looks Like?" Snopes , 26 Aug. 2021, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/jupiter-south-pole/ .