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By jayeffex

Ten interesting facts about Jupiter

Here is a list of some interesting facts about the planet Jupiter. A planet that catches the attention of all, by its size, storms and its surprising moons.

The mass of Jupiter is 318 times as massive as the Earth. In fact, Jupiter is 2.5 times more massive than all of the other planets in the Solar System combined.

Its gravity is so strong that a rocket would have to go an unthinkable 135,000 mph to leave.

The Great Red Spot on Jupiter is one of its most familiar features. This persistent anticyclonic storm, which is located south of its equator, measures between 24,000 km in diameter and 12–14,000 km in height. As such, it is large enough to contain two or three planets the size of Earth’s diameter. And the spot has been around for at least 350 years, since it was spotted as far back as the 17th century.

Jupiter’s rings were discovered in 1979 by the passing Voyager 1 spacecraft, but their origin was a mystery. Data from the Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003 later confirmed that these rings were created by meteoroid impacts on small nearby moons.

Extending up to seven million kilometers in the Sun’s direction and almost to the orbit of Saturn in the opposite direction, Jupiter’s magnetosphere is the largest and most powerful of any planetary magnetosphere in the Solar System, and by volume the largest known continuous structure in the Solar System after the heliosphere.

Jupiter has a total of 69 natural satellites. The four largest are: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. However, it is estimated that the planet has over 200 natural satellites orbiting it. Almost all of them are less than 10 kilometers in diameter, and were only discovered after 1975, when the first spacecraft (Pioneer 10) arrived at Jupiter.

Jupiter Has Been Visited 8 Times By Spacecraft. Jupiter was first visited by NASA’s Pioneer 10 spacecraft in December 1973, and then Pioneer 11 in December 1974. Then came the Voyager 1 and 2 flybys, both of which happened in 1979. This was followed by a long break until Ulysses arrived in February 1992, followed by the Galileo space probe in 1995. Then Cassini made a flyby in 2000, on its way to Saturn. And finally, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made its flyby in 2007. NASA’s Juno spacecraft is currently orbiting Jupiter.

Jupiter is the third brightest object in the Solar System, after Venus and the Moon.

Jupiter Is The Fastest Spinning Planet In The Solar System. For all its size and mass, Jupiter sure moves quickly. In fact, with an rotational velocity of 12.6 km/s (~7.45 m/s) or 45,300 km/h (28,148 mph), the planet only takes about 10 hours to complete a full rotation on its axis. And because it’s spinning so rapidly, the planet has flattened out at the poles a little and is bulging at its equator.

Jupiter Cannot Become A Star. Astronomers call Jupiter a failed star, but that’s not really an appropriate description. While it is true that, like a star, Jupiter is rich in hydrogen and helium, Jupiter does not have nearly enough mass to trigger a fusion reaction in its core. This is how stars generate energy, by fusing hydrogen atoms together under extreme heat and pressure to create helium, releasing light and heat in the process.

This is made possible by their enormous gravity. For Jupiter to ignite a nuclear fusion process and become a star, it would need more than 70 times its current mass. If you could crash dozens of Jupiters together, you might have a chance to make a new star. But in the meantime, Jupiter shall remain a large gas giant with no hopes of becoming a star. Sorry, Jupiter!

Sources: universetoday and wikipedia

Images credits: Wikimedia Commons, JAXA, NASA, ESA, Hubble, Wang Letian & Michael Carroll

This image shows knots of cold, dense interstellar gas where new stars are forming. These Free-floating Evaporating Gaseous Globules (frEGGs) were first seen in Hubble’s famous 1995 image of the Eagle Nebula. Because these lumps of gas are dark, they are rarely seen by telescopes. They can be observed when the newly forming stars ignite, their intense ultraviolet radiation eroding the surrounding gas away and letting the denser, more resistant frEGGs remain. These frEGGs are located in the Northern Coalsack Nebula in the direction of Cygnus.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Sahai (Jet Propulsion Laboratory); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

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Characteristics of the moons of Saturn

Saturn has 62 natural satellites. Here are some features of some of its moons, with mountains, valleys, and striking marks on their surfaces, often marked by asteroid bombardments causing small, huge craters.

Iapetus -  Equatorial ridge

Iapetus’s equatorial ridge was discovered when the Cassini spacecraft imaged Iapetus on 31 December 2004. Peaks in the ridge rise more than 20 km above the surrounding plains, making them some of the tallest mountains in the Solar System. The ridge forms a complex system including isolated peaks, segments of more than 200 km and sections with three near parallel ridges. 

Tethys - Odysseus crater

Odysseus is the largest crater on Saturn’s moon Tethys. It is 445 km across, more than 2/5 of the moon’s diameter, and is one of the largest craters in the Solar System.

Tethys - Ithaca Chasma

Ithaca Chasma is a valley (graben) on Saturn’s moon Tethys, named after the island of Ithaca, in Greece. It is up to 100 km wide, 3 to 5 km deep and 2,000 km long, running approximately three-quarters of the way around Tethys’ circumference, making it one of the longer valleys in the Solar System. Ithaca Chasma is approximately concentric with Odysseus crater. 

Tethys - Red arcs

Unusual arc-shaped, reddish streaks cut across the surface of Saturn’s ice-rich moon Tethys in this enhanced-color mosaic. The red streaks are narrow, curved lines on the moon’s surface, only a few miles (or kilometers) wide but several hundred miles (or kilometers) long.

Rhea - Inktomi crater

Inktomi, also known as The Splat, is a prominent rayed impact crater 47.2 kilometres (29.3 mi) in diameter located in the southern hemisphere of Saturn’s moon Rhea.

Mimas - Herschel Crater

Herschel is a huge crater in the leading hemisphere of the Saturnian moon Mimas, on the equator at 100° longitude. It is so large that astronomers have expressed surprise that Mimas was not shattered by the impact that caused it. It measures 139 kilometres (86 miles) across, almost one third the diameter of Mimas. If there were a crater of an equivalent scale on Earth it would be over 4,000 km (2,500 mi) in diameter – wider than Canada – with walls over 200 km (120 mi) high.

Enceladus - Surface with fractures

Close up of one of the ‘tiger stripes” or fissures called Baghdad Sulcus. Both heat and occasional geysers issue from this formidable crack. Some of the material coating the landscape may be snow condensed from vapor. This closeup of the surface of Enceladus on November 21, 2009, viewed from approximately 1,260 miles (2,028 kilometers) away. 

Dione - Contrasts

This image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows a part of Dione’s surface that is covered by linear, curving features, called chasmata. One possibility is that this stress pattern may be related to Dione’s orbital evolution and the effect of tidal stresses over time. This view looks toward the trailing hemisphere of Dione. 

Learn more: Iapetus, Tethys, Rhea, Mimas, Enceladus and Dione.

Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Meteor Shower Time: The Geminids!

The biggest rival of the Perseid meteor shower has arrived! The Geminids which has a reputation for the enormous about of meteors it produces peaks Friday the 14th. This shower often gets overlooked due to the fact that much of the Northern Hemisphere is freezing its buns off during this time. But if you are somewhere warm… or even have a decent sized window, you will want to give this one a shot.

Read the full post to see how to catch it 

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From lulumoonowlbooks on instagram

The Moon, Venus and Mercury at Dawn 1 - Feb 7, 2016

image credit: Joseph Brimacombe

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Autumn Garden by Boris Groh