It has been a BIG week so we’re headed on our next big adventure! Straight past the asteroid belt, we are all set to explore the largest planet in our solar system and the first of the gas giants, Jupiter.
Jupiter has moons! Jupiter has a TON of moons with 95 officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union. The largest were discovered way back in the 1600s by Galileo just months after building his first telescope. You can actually see them with binoculars if you know where to look.
Jupiter spins fast! Jupiter has the shortest day of any planet in our solar system at just 9.9 hours. The fast spin pulls the clouds into bands which is what give Jupiter it's stripes. It also has a very mild tilt at just 3 degrees which means that it doesn’t experience extreme seasons like most of the other planets do.
Jupiter has rings too! Though we think of rings as being more of a Saturn thing, Jupiter has rings made of small dark particles and dust that are really hard to see. So much so that astronomers had no idea until NASA’s Voyager 1 craft flew by and discovered them in 1979!
Jupiter has storms! Cyclones AND anticyclones swirl their way through Juipter's atmosphere. NASA’s Juno probe in 2021 gave us our best look yet at what was under those iconic clouds. Juno found that the cyclones are warmer and lighter on top and colder and heavier at the bottom. Because anticyclones move in the opposite direction, they are colder up top and warmer near the bottom. I didn’t even know anticyclones existed!
Jupiter is lumpy! Speaking of, Jupiter’s storms, they're are much taller than we expected - some extend over 60 miles below the cloud top while the Great Red Spot extends over 200 miles above it. Artists have been drawing a red spot on Jupiter since the 1700s.
The poles have cyclones too! There are giant cyclone storms at each of Jupiter’s poles, with eight in the north and five in the south.
The Jupiter Phoenix design by Rahlee has fluffy feathers that mimic swirls and storms of Jupiter's atmosphere.
