The planet Jupiter

Jupiter means: Jupiter, known as Zeus in Greek mythology, over threw his father Saturn to become king of the gods. He then split the universe with his brothers Neptune and Pluto. 

Facts about Planet Jupiter* Diameter: 85,788 miles the largest planet - more than 12 Earths could line up across it* Temperature: Range -163° C to >-121° C* Distance from Sun: Approximately 466 million miles* Atmosphere: Mostly hydrogen and helium* Surface: A giant ball of mostly hydrogen and helium* Rotation of its axis: 9 hours, 55 minutes in Earth time (the length of one rotation)* Rotation around the Sun: 12 Earth years* Magnetic Field: Yes* Number of Moons: 63 moons have been identified Ganymede is the largest moon - it is bigger than both Mercury and Pluto

Jupiter is the largest planet in our Solar System. The Earth could fit inside Jupiter more than 1000 times.

Jupiter is a very stormy planet. There are storms found throughout the atmosphere, and most of the storms seem to never end. The many different cloud formations and storms in the atmosphere also make Jupiter a very colorful planet.

When viewed from Earth, Jupiter can reach an apparent magnitude of −2.94, bright enough to cast shadows,  and making it on average the third-brightest object in the night sky after the Moon and Venus. (Mars can briefly match Jupiter's brightness at certain points in its orbit.)

Jupiter's mass is 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined—this is so massive that its barycenter with the Sun lies above the Sun's surface at 1.068 solar radii from the Sun's center. Although this planet dwarfs the Earth with a diameter 11 times as great, it is considerably less dense. Jupiter's volume is that of about 1,321 Earths, yet the planet is only 318 times as massive. Jupiter's radius is about 1/10 the radius of the Sun, and its mass is 0.001 times the mass of the Sun, so the density of the two bodies is similar

Atmosphere Jupiter is about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium (by numbers of atoms, 75/25% by mass) with traces of methane, water, ammonia and "rock". This is very close to the composition of the primordial Solar Nebula from which the entire solar system was formed. Saturn has a similar composition, but Uranus and Neptune have much less hydrogen and helium.

Jupiter's great red spot, visible in the picture above

to the right, is where a giant storm has been raging for at

least 300 years. This red spot is also called "The Eye of

Jupiter" because of its shape. This storm's super

hurricane winds blow across an area larger than the

Earth.

Jupiter has 50 official moons and 12 provisional (unofficial) moons. The four largest and most well-known were discovered by Galileo in the year 1610. Their names are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Some of the other moons are Adrastea, Ananke, Carme, Elara, Himalia, Leda, Lysithea, Metis, Pasiphae, Sinope, and Thebe.

RingsDid you know Jupiter has rings? They are faint and

are only able to be viewed when Jupiter passes in front of the Sun. This is because the light from the

Sun lights them up for us to see here on Earth. There are three rings in all. They are named Gossamer,

Main and Halo.

Flights to Jupiter: The United States has sent six space probes to Jupiter: (1) Pioneer 10 (December 1973) (2)Pioneer 11 (December 1974) (3) Voyager 1 (1979) (4) Voyager 2  (1979) (5) Ulysses (February 1992) and (6)Galileo.In December 1995, NASA's Galileo spacecraft dropped a probe into Jupiter's atmosphere, which collected the first direct measurements of the atmosphere.

During the Jupiter leg of its journey, the spacecraft Voyager 2 was to explore the giant planet, its magnetosphere and moons in greater detail than had the Pioneer spacecraft that preceded it. Voyager 2 was not only to study Jupiter, but to use it as a springboard to Saturn, using the gravity-assist technique.

Magnetic Field Jupiter has a huge magnetic field, much stronger than Earth's. Its magnetosphere extends more than 650 million km (past the orbit of Saturn!). 

GravityBecause of the giant size of Jupiter, the gravity there is 2.4 times more than on Earth. If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would feel like you weighed 240 pounds on Jupiter.

Life

Amazing as it may seem scientists have speculated that life on Jupiter is possible. This would occur

beneath the cloud cover where room temperature

conditions exist, these lifeforms would be airborne

although this theory is thought to be highly

speculative.