Facts About Planet Jupiter

The planet Jupiter is the (5^th) planet out from the Sun, and is two and a half times more massive than all other planets in the solar system combined. It is made primarily of gases and is therefore known as a “gas giant”. This is just a tip of an ice berg. In this article, you will find a bit of elementary science mixed with mythology that will make your day. Follow me as we uncover some interesting and mind blowing facts you wish you knew about this singular planet.

Other interesting facts about Jupiter:

• Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the solar system; this means, only the Sun, Moon and Venus are brighter than Jupiter.

• It is one of the five planets visible to the naked eye from Earth; hence, if you head outside to a good viewing point about an hour before sunrise, you can catch a glimpse of Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus. Meanwhile, the ancient Babylonians were the first to record sightings of Jupiter. This was around the 7th or 8th century BC.

• Jupiter is named after the king of the Roman gods. To the Greeks, it represented Zeus, the god of thunder. The Mesopotamians saw Jupiter as the god Marduk and patron of the city of Babylon. Germanic tribes saw this planet as Donar, or Thor.

• Jupiter has the shortest day of all the planets. It turns on its axis once every 9 hours and 55 minutes. The rapid rotation flattens the planet slightly, giving it an oblate shape.

• Jupiter orbits the Sun once every 11.8 Earth years. Hence, from our point of view on Earth, it appears to move slowly in the sky, taking months to move from one constellation to another.

• Just like our earth, Jupiter has unique cloud features. The upper atmosphere of Jupiter is divided into cloud belts and zones. They are made primarily of ammonia crystals, sulfur, and mixtures of the two compounds.

• Jupiter’s interior is made of rock, metal, and hydrogen compounds.

• Below Jupiter’s massive atmosphere (which is made primarily of hydrogen), there are layers of compressed hydrogen gas, liquid metallic hydrogen, and a core of ice, rock, and metals.

• Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system. Jupiter’s moons are sometimes called the Jovian satellites, the largest of these are Ganymeade, Callisto Io and Europa. Ganymeade measures 5,268 km across, making it larger than the planet Mercury.

• Eight spacecrafts have visited Jupiter, namely; Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, Galileo, Cassini, Ulysses, and New Horizons missions. The Juno mission is on its way to Jupiter and will arrive this Month (July 2016).

As you already know; our Solar System has eight planets which orbit the sun. In order of distance from the sun, they are; Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Pluto, which until recently was considered to be the farthest planet, is now classified as a dwarf planet. In other words, instead of the initial 9 planets taught to us in school days, what we have now is 8 planets, so make no mistakes about that.

Mythological facts about Planet Jupiter:

Jupiter is named after the king of the Roman gods. To the Greeks, it represented Zeus, the god of thunder.

• Jupiter also known as (Lūpiter: Latin) is the god of sky and thunder and king of the gods in Ancient Roman religion and mythology. Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire.

• In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as sacrifice.

• Jupiter is usually thought to have originated as a sky god. His identifying tool (presence) was the thunderbolt and his primary sacred animal was the eagle, which held precedence over other birds in supports and became one of the most common symbols of the Roman army.

• The two emblems were often combined to represent the god in the form of an eagle holding its claws on a thunderbolt, frequently seen on Greek and Roman coins.

• As the sky-god, he was a divine witness to oaths, the sacred trust on which justice and good government depended. Many of his functions were focused on the Capitoline Hill, where the citadel was located. He was the chief deity of the early Capitoline Triad with Mars and Quirinus. His sacred tree was the oak tree.

• The Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, and in Latin literature and Roman art, the myths and iconography of Zeus are adapted under the name Lupiter. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Jupiter was the brother of Neptune and Pluto. Each presided over one of the three realms of the universe: sky, the waters, and the underworld.

Sources: space-facts.com, ebay.com, scienceblogs.com, collective-evolution.com & en.wikipedia.org.