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This article is about the planet. For the Roman god, see Jupiter (mythology). For other uses, see Jupiter (disambiguation).
Jupiter Astronomical symbol of Jupiter
Jupiter by Cassini-Huygens.jpg
A composite Cassini image of Jupiter.
Pronunciation Listeni/ˈpɨtər/[1]
Adjectives Jovian
Orbital characteristics[5][a]
Epoch J2000
Aphelion 816520800 km (5.458104 AU)
Perihelion 740573600 km (4.950429 AU)
778547200 km (5.204267 AU)
Eccentricity 0.048775
398.88 d[3]
13.07 km/s[3]
Known satellites 67 As of 2012
Physical characteristics
Mean radius
69911±6 km[6][b]
Equatorial radius
Polar radius
  • 66854±10 km[6][b]
  • 10.517 Earths
Flattening 0.06487±0.00015
  • 6.1419×1010 km2[b][7]
  • 121.9 Earths
  • 1.4313×1015 km3[3][b]
  • 1321.3 Earths
  • 1.8986×1027 kg[3]
  • 317.8 Earths
  • 1/1047 Sun[8]
Mean density
1.326 g/cm3[3][b]
24.79 m/s2[3][b]
2.528 g
59.5 km/s[3][b]
9.925 h[9] (9 h 55 m 30 s)
Equatorial rotation velocity
12.6 km/s
45300 km/h
North pole right ascension
17h 52m 14s[6]
North pole declination

0.343 (Bond)

0.52 (geom.)[3]
Surface temp. min mean max
1 bar level 165 K (-108.15°C)[3]
0.1 bar 112 K[3]
−1.6 to −2.94[3]
29.8″ to 50.1″[3]
Surface pressure
20–200 kPa[10] (cloud layer)
27 km
89.8±2.0% hydrogen (H2)
10.2±2.0% helium (He)
≈ 0.3% methane (CH4)
≈ 0.026% ammonia (NH3)
≈ 0.003% hydrogen deuteride (HD)
0.0006% ethane (C2H6)
0.0004% water (H2O)


Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth of that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in the Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Together, these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian or outer planets. The planet was known by astronomers of ancient times,[11] and was associated with the mythology and religious beliefs of many cultures. The Romans named the planet after the Roman god Jupiter.[12] When viewed from Earth, Jupiter can reach an apparent magnitude of −2.94, bright enough to cast shadows,[13] 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 is primarily composed of hydrogen with a quarter of its mass being helium, although helium only comprises about a tenth of the number of molecules. It may also have a rocky core of heavier elements,[14] but like the other gas giants, Jupiter lacks a well-defined solid surface. Because of its rapid rotation, the planet's shape is that of an oblate spheroid (it possesses a slight but noticeable bulge around the equator). The outer atmosphere is visibly segregated into several bands at different latitudes, resulting in turbulence and storms along their interacting boundaries. A prominent result is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm that is known to have existed since at least the 17th century when it was first seen by telescope. Surrounding Jupiter is a faint planetary ring system and a powerful magnetosphere. There are also at least 67 moons, including the four large moons called the Galilean moons that were first discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Ganymede, the largest of these moons, has a diameter greater than that of the planet Mercury.

Jupiter has been explored on several occasions by robotic spacecraft, most notably during the early Pioneer and Voyager flyby missions and later by the Galileo orbiter. The most recent probe to visit Jupiter was the Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft in late February 2007. The probe used the gravity from Jupiter to increase its speed. Future targets for exploration in the Jovian system include the possible ice-covered liquid ocean on the moon Europa.


Jupiter is composed primarily of gaseous and liquid matter. It is the largest of four gas giants as well as the largest planet in the Solar System with a diameter of 142,984 km (88,846 mi) at its equator. The density of Jupiter, 1.326 g/cm3, is the second highest of the gas giants, but lower than for any of the four terrestrial planets.


Jupiter's upper atmosphere is composed of about 88–92% hydrogen and 8–12% helium by percent volume or fraction of gas molecules. Since a helium atom has about four times as much mass as a hydrogen atom, the composition changes when described as the proportion of mass contributed by different atoms. Thus, the atmosphere is approximately 75% hydrogen and 24% helium by mass, with the remaining one percent of the mass consisting of other elements. The interior contains denser materials such that the distribution is roughly 71% hydrogen, 24% helium and 5% other elements by mass. The atmosphere contains trace amounts of methane, water vapor, ammonia, and silicon-based compounds. There are also traces of carbon, ethane, hydrogen sulfide, neon, oxygen, phosphine, and sulfur. The outermost layer of the atmosphere contains crystals of frozen ammonia.[15][16] Through infrared and ultraviolet measurements, trace amounts of benzene and other hydrocarbons have also been found.[17]

The atmospheric proportions of hydrogen and helium are very close to the theoretical composition of the primordial solar nebula. Neon in the upper atmosphere only consists of 20 parts per million by mass, which is about a tenth as abundant as in the Sun.[18] Helium is also depleted, although only to about 80% of the Sun's helium composition. This depletion is a result of precipitation of these elements into the interior of the planet,[19][dead link][citation needed] and because the sun is producing helium by fusion.[citation needed] Abundances of heavier inert gases in Jupiter's atmosphere are about two to three times that of the Sun.

Based on spectroscopy, Saturn is thought to be similar in composition to Jupiter, but the other gas giants Uranus and Neptune have relatively much less hydrogen and helium.[20] Because of the lack of atmospheric entry probes, high-quality abundance numbers of the heavier elements are lacking for the outer planets beyond Jupiter.


Jupiter's diameter is one order of magnitude smaller (×0.10045) than the Sun, and one order of magnitude larger (×10.9733) than the Earth. The Great Red Spot has roughly the same size as the circumference of the Earth.

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.[3][21] Jupiter's radius is about 1/10 the radius of the Sun,[22] and its mass is 0.001 times the mass of the Sun, so the density of the two bodies is similar.[23] A "Jupiter mass" (MJ or MJup) is often used as a unit to describe masses of other objects, particularly extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs. So, for example, the extrasolar planet HD 209458 b has a mass of 0.69 MJ, while Kappa Andromedae b has a mass of 12.8 MJ.[24]

Theoretical models indicate that if Jupiter had much more mass than it does at present, the planet would shrink.[25] For small changes in mass, the radius would not change appreciably, and above about 500 M (1.6 Jupiter masses)[25] the interior would become so much more compressed under the increased gravitation force that the planet's volume would decrease despite the increasing amount of matter. As a result, Jupiter is thought to have about as large a diameter as a planet of its composition and evolutionary history can achieve. The process of further shrinkage with increasing mass would continue until appreciable stellar ignition is achieved as in high-mass brown dwarfs around 50 Jupiter masses.[26]

Although Jupiter would need to be about 75 times as massive to fuse hydrogen and become a star, the smallest red dwarf is only about 30 percent larger in radius than Jupiter.[27][28] Despite this, Jupiter still radiates more heat than it receives from the Sun; the amount of heat produced inside the planet is similar to the total solar radiation it receives.[29] This additional heat radiation is generated by the Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism through contraction. This process results in the planet shrinking by about 2 cm each year.[30] When it was first formed, Jupiter was much hotter and was about twice its current diameter.[31]

Internal structure

Jupiter is thought to consist of a dense core with a mixture of elements, a surrounding layer of liquid metallic hydrogen with some helium, and an outer layer predominantly of molecular hydrogen.[30] Beyond this basic outline, there is still considerable uncertainty. The core is often described as rocky, but its detailed composition is unknown, as are the properties of materials at the temperatures and pressures of those depths (see below). In 1997, the existence of the core was suggested by gravitational measurements,[30] indicating a mass of from 12 to 45 times the Earth's mass or roughly 4%–14% of the total mass of Jupiter.[29][32] The presence of a core during at least part of Jupiter's history is suggested by models of planetary formation involving initial formation of a rocky or icy core that is massive enough to collect its bulk of hydrogen and helium from the protosolar nebula. Assuming it did exist, it may have shrunk as convection currents of hot liquid metallic hydrogen mixed with the molten core and carried its contents to higher levels in the planetary interior. A core may now be entirely absent, because gravitational measurements are not yet precise enough to rule that possibility out entirely.[30][33]

The uncertainty of the models is tied to the error margin in hitherto measured parameters: one of the rotational coefficients (J6) used to describe the planet's gravitational moment, Jupiter's equatorial radius, and its temperature at 1 bar pressure. The Juno mission, which launched in August 2011, is expected to better constrain the values of these parameters, and thereby make progress on the problem of the core.[34]

The core region is surrounded by dense metallic hydrogen, which extends outward to about 78 percent of the radius of the planet.[29] Rain-like droplets of helium and neon precipitate downward through this layer, depleting the abundance of these elements in the upper atmosphere.[19][35]

Above the layer of metallic hydrogen lies a transparent interior atmosphere of hydrogen. At this depth, the temperature is above the critical temperature, which for hydrogen is only 33 K[36] (see hydrogen). In this state, there are no distinct liquid and gas phases—hydrogen is said to be in a supercritical fluid state. It is convenient to treat hydrogen as gas in the upper layer extending downward from the cloud layer to a depth of about 1,000 km,[29] and as liquid in deeper layers. Physically, there is no clear boundary—the gas smoothly becomes hotter and denser as one descends.[37][38]

The temperature and pressure inside Jupiter increase steadily toward the core. At the "surface" pressure level of 10 bars, the temperature is around 340 K. At the phase transition region where hydrogen—heated beyond its critical point—becomes metallic, it is believed the temperature is 10,000 K and the pressure is 200 GPa. The temperature at the core boundary is estimated to be 36,000 K and the interior pressure is roughly 3,000–4,500 GPa.[29]

Diagram of Jupiter's moons, surface, and interior


Main article: Atmosphere of Jupiter

Jupiter has the largest planetary atmosphere in the Solar System, spanning over 5,000 km (3,107 mi) in altitude.[39][40] As Jupiter has no surface, the base of its atmosphere is usually considered to be the point at which atmospheric pressure is equal to 1 MPa (10 bar), or ten times surface pressure on Earth.[39]

Cloud layers

This view of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and its surroundings was obtained by Voyager 1 on February 25, 1979, when the spacecraft was 9.2 million km (5.7 million mi) from Jupiter. The white oval storm directly below the Great Red Spot is approximately the same diameter as Earth.

Jupiter is perpetually covered with clouds composed of ammonia crystals and possibly ammonium hydrosulfide. The clouds are located in the tropopause and are arranged into bands of different latitudes, known as tropical regions. These are sub-divided into lighter-hued zones and darker belts. The interactions of these conflicting circulation patterns cause storms and turbulence. Wind speeds of 100 m/s (360 km/h) are common in zonal jets.[41] The zones have been observed to vary in width, color and intensity from year to year, but they have remained sufficiently stable for astronomers to give them identifying designations.[21]

This looping animation shows the movement of Jupiter's counter-rotating cloud bands. In this image, the planet's exterior is mapped onto a cylindrical projection. Animation at larger widths: 720 pixels, 1799 pixels.

The cloud layer is only about 50 km (31 mi) deep, and consists of at least two decks of clouds: a thick lower deck and a thin clearer region. There may also be a thin layer of water clouds underlying the ammonia layer, as evidenced by flashes of lightning detected in the atmosphere of Jupiter. This is caused by water's polarity, which makes it capable of creating the charge separation needed to produce lightning.[29] These electrical discharges can be up to a thousand times as powerful as lightning on the Earth.[42] The water clouds can form thunderstorms driven by the heat rising from the interior.[43]

The orange and brown coloration in the clouds of Jupiter are caused by upwelling compounds that change color when they are exposed to ultraviolet light from the Sun. The exact makeup remains uncertain, but the substances are believed to be phosphorus, sulfur or possibly hydrocarbons.[29][44] These colorful compounds, known as chromophores, mix with the warmer, lower deck of clouds. The zones are formed when rising convection cells form crystallizing ammonia that masks out these lower clouds from view.[45]


Great Red Spot and other vortices

Jupiter - Great Red Spot is decreasing in size (May 15, 2014).[46]

The best known feature of Jupiter is the Great Red Spot, a persistent anticyclonic storm that is larger than Earth, located 22° south of the equator. Latest evidence by the Hubble Space Telescope shows there are three "red spots" adjacent to the Great Red Spot[47] It is known to have been in existence since at least 1831,[48] and possibly since 1665.[49][50] Mathematical models suggest that the storm is stable and may be a permanent feature of the planet.[51] The storm is large enough to be visible through Earth-based telescopes with an aperture of 12 cm or larger.[52]

Time-lapse sequence (over 1 month) from the approach of Voyager 1 to Jupiter, showing the motion of atmospheric bands, and circulation of the Great Red Spot. Full size video here

The oval object rotates counterclockwise, with a period of about six days.[53] The Great Red Spot's dimensions are 24–40,000 km × 12–14,000 km. It is large enough to contain two or three planets of Earth's diameter.[54] The maximum altitude of this storm is about 8 km (5 mi) above the surrounding cloudtops.[55]


Even before Voyager proved that the feature was a storm, there was strong evidence that the spot could not be associated with any deeper feature on the planet's surface, as the Spot rotates differentially with respect to the rest of the atmosphere, sometimes faster and sometimes more slowly. During its recorded history it has traveled several times around the planet relative to any possible fixed rotational marker below it.


Planetary rings

Main article: Rings of Jupiter

Jupiter has a faint planetary ring system composed of three main segments: an inner torus of particles known as the halo, a relatively bright main ring, and an outer gossamer ring.[59] These rings appear to be made of dust, rather than ice as with Saturn's rings.[29] The main ring is probably made of material ejected from the satellites Adrastea and Metis. Material that would normally fall back to the moon is pulled into Jupiter because of its strong gravitational influence. The orbit of the material veers towards Jupiter and new material is added by additional impacts.[60] In a similar way, the moons Thebe and Amalthea probably produce the two distinct components of the dusty gossamer ring.[60] There is also evidence of a rocky ring strung along Amalthea's orbit which may consist of collisional debris from that moon.[61]


Aurora on Jupiter. Three bright dots are created by magnetic flux tubes that connect to the Jovian moons Io (on the left), Ganymede (on the bottom) and Europa (also on the bottom). In addition, the very bright almost circular region, called the main oval, and the fainter polar aurora can be seen.



The magnetosphere of Jupiter is responsible for intense episodes of radio emission from the planet's polar regions. Volcanic activity on the Jovian moon Io (see below) injects gas into Jupiter's magnetosphere, producing a torus of particles about the planet. As Io moves through this torus, the interaction generates Alfvén waves that carry ionized matter into the polar regions of Jupiter. As a result, radio waves are generated through a cyclotron maser mechanism, and the energy is transmitted out along a cone-shaped surface. When the Earth intersects this cone, the radio emissions from Jupiter can exceed the solar radio output.[63]

Orbit and rotation

Jupiter (red) completes one orbit of the Sun (center) for every 11.86 orbits of the Earth (blue)

Jupiter is the only planet that has a center of mass with the Sun that lies outside the volume of the Sun, though by only 7% of the Sun's radius.[64] The average distance between Jupiter and the Sun is 778 million km (about 5.2 times the average distance from the Earth to the Sun, or 5.2 AU) and it completes an orbit every 11.86 years. This is two-fifths the orbital period of Saturn, forming a 5:2 orbital resonance between the two largest planets in the Solar System.[65] The elliptical orbit of Jupiter is inclined 1.31° compared to the Earth. Because of an eccentricity of 0.048, the distance from Jupiter and the Sun varies by 75 million km between perihelion and aphelion, or the nearest and most distant points of the planet along the orbital path respectively.

The axial tilt of Jupiter is relatively small: only 3.13°. As a result this planet does not experience significant seasonal changes, in contrast to Earth and Mars for example.[66]




Conjunction of Jupiter and the Moon
The retrograde motion of an outer planet is caused by its relative location with respect to the Earth.

Jupiter is usually the fourth brightest object in the sky (after the Sun, the Moon and Venus);[45] at times Mars appears brighter than Jupiter. Depending on Jupiter's position with respect to the Earth, it can vary in visual magnitude from as bright as −2.9 at opposition down to −1.6 during conjunction with the Sun. The angular diameter of Jupiter likewise varies from 50.1 to 29.8 arc seconds.[3] Favorable oppositions occur when Jupiter is passing through perihelion, an event that occurs once per orbit. As Jupiter approached perihelion in March 2011, there was a favorable opposition in September 2010.[68]


Jupiter's 12-year orbital period corresponds to the dozen astrological signs of the zodiac, and may have been the historical origin of the signs.[21] That is, each time Jupiter reaches opposition it has advanced eastward by about 30°, the width of a zodiac sign.

Because the orbit of Jupiter is outside the Earth's, the phase angle of Jupiter as viewed from the Earth never exceeds 11.5°. That is, the planet always appears nearly fully illuminated when viewed through Earth-based telescopes. It was only during spacecraft missions to Jupiter that crescent views of the planet were obtained.[69] A small telescope will usually show Jupiter's four Galilean Moons and the prominent cloud belts across Jupiter's atmosphere.[70] A large telescope will show Jupiter's Great Red Spot when it faces the Earth.

Research and exploration

Pre-telescopic research

Model in the Almagest of the longitudinal motion of Jupiter (☉) relative to the Earth (⊕).

The observation of Jupiter dates back to the Babylonian astronomers of the 7th or 8th century BC.[71] The Chinese historian of astronomy, Xi Zezong, has claimed that Gan De, a Chinese astronomer, made the discovery of one of Jupiter's moons in 362 BC with the unaided eye. If accurate, this would predate Galileo's discovery by nearly two millennia.[72][73] In his 2nd century work the Almagest, the Hellenistic astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus constructed a geocentric planetary model based on deferents and epicycles to explain Jupiter's motion relative to the Earth, giving its orbital period around the Earth as 4332.38 days, or 11.86 years.[74] In 499, Aryabhata, a mathematician-astronomer from the classical age of Indian mathematics and astronomy, also used a geocentric model to estimate Jupiter's period as 4332.2722 days, or 11.86 years.[75]

Ground-based telescope research

In 1610, Galileo Galilei discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter—Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto (now known as the Galilean moons)—using a telescope; thought to be the first telescopic observation of moons other than Earth's. Galileo's was also the first discovery of a celestial motion not apparently centered on the Earth. It was a major point in favor of Copernicus' heliocentric theory of the motions of the planets; Galileo's outspoken support of the Copernican theory placed him under the threat of the Inquisition.[76]

During the 1660s, Cassini used a new telescope to discover spots and colorful bands on Jupiter and observed that the planet appeared oblate; that is, flattened at the poles. He was also able to estimate the rotation period of the planet.[16] In 1690 Cassini noticed that the atmosphere undergoes differential rotation.[29]


The Great Red Spot, a prominent oval-shaped feature in the southern hemisphere of Jupiter, may have been observed as early as 1664 by Robert Hooke and in 1665 by Giovanni Cassini, although this is disputed. The pharmacist Heinrich Schwabe produced the earliest known drawing to show details of the Great Red Spot in 1831.[77]


Both Giovanni Borelli and Cassini made careful tables of the motions of the Jovian moons, allowing predictions of the times when the moons would pass before or behind the planet. By the 1670s, it was observed that when Jupiter was on the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth, these events would occur about 17 minutes later than expected. Ole Rømer deduced that sight is not instantaneous (a conclusion that Cassini had earlier rejected),[16] and this timing discrepancy was used to estimate the speed of light.[79]

In 1892, E. E. Barnard observed a fifth satellite of Jupiter with the 36-inch (910 mm) refractor at Lick Observatory in California. The discovery of this relatively small object, a testament to his keen eyesight, quickly made him famous. The moon was later named Amalthea.[80] It was the last planetary moon to be discovered directly by visual observation.[81] An additional eight satellites were subsequently discovered before the flyby of the Voyager 1 probe in 1979.

Infrared image of Jupiter taken by the ESO's Very Large Telescope.

In 1932, Rupert Wildt identified absorption bands of ammonia and methane in the spectra of Jupiter.[82]


Radiotelescope research



  • Decimetric radio emission (with wavelengths measured in centimeters) was first observed by Frank Drake and Hein Hvatum in 1959.[29] The origin of this signal was from a torus-shaped belt around Jupiter's equator. This signal is caused by cyclotron radiation from electrons that are accelerated in Jupiter's magnetic field.[86]
  • Thermal radiation is produced by heat in the atmosphere of Jupiter.[29]

Exploration with space probes

Since 1973 a number of automated spacecraft have visited Jupiter, most notably the Pioneer 10 space probe, the first spacecraft to get close enough to Jupiter to send back revelations about the properties and phenomena of the Solar System's largest planet.[87][88] Flights to other planets within the Solar System are accomplished at a cost in energy, which is described by the net change in velocity of the spacecraft, or delta-v. Entering a Hohmann transfer orbit from Earth to Jupiter from low Earth orbit requires a delta-v of 6.3 km/s[89] which is comparable to the 9.7 km/s delta-v needed to reach low Earth orbit.[90] Fortunately, gravity assists through planetary flybys can be used to reduce the energy required to reach Jupiter, albeit at the cost of a significantly longer flight duration.[91]

Flyby missions

Flyby missions
Spacecraft Closest
Pioneer 10 December 3, 1973 130,000 km
Pioneer 11 December 4, 1974 34,000 km
Voyager 1 March 5, 1979 349,000 km
Voyager 2 July 9, 1979 570,000 km
Ulysses February 8, 1992[92] 408,894 km
February 4, 2004[92] 120,000,000 km
Cassini December 30, 2000 10,000,000 km
New Horizons February 28, 2007 2,304,535 km



The next mission to encounter Jupiter, the Ulysses solar probe, performed a flyby maneuver to attain a polar orbit around the Sun. During this pass the spacecraft conducted studies on Jupiter's magnetosphere. Since Ulysses has no cameras, no images were taken. A second flyby six years later was at a much greater distance.[92]

Cassini views Jupiter and Io on January 1, 2001

In 2000, the Cassini probe, en route to Saturn, flew by Jupiter and provided some of the highest-resolution images ever made of the planet. On December 19, 2000, the spacecraft captured an image of the moon Himalia, but the resolution was too low to show surface details.[94]

The New Horizons probe, en route to Pluto, flew by Jupiter for gravity assist. Its closest approach was on February 28, 2007.[95] The probe's cameras measured plasma output from volcanoes on Io and studied all four Galilean moons in detail, as well as making long-distance observations of the outer moons Himalia and Elara.[96] Imaging of the Jovian system began September 4, 2006.[97][98]

Galileo mission

Jupiter as seen by the space probe Cassini.

So far the only spacecraft to orbit Jupiter is the Galileo orbiter, which went into orbit around Jupiter on December 7, 1995. It orbited the planet for over seven years, conducting multiple flybys of all the Galilean moons and Amalthea. The spacecraft also witnessed the impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 as it approached Jupiter in 1994, giving a unique vantage point for the event. While the information gained about the Jovian system from Galileo was extensive, its originally designed capacity was limited by the failed deployment of its high-gain radio transmitting antenna.[99]

An atmospheric probe was released from the spacecraft in July 1995, entering the planet's atmosphere on December 7. It parachuted through 150 km (93 mi) of the atmosphere, collected data for 57.6 minutes, and was crushed by the pressure to which it was subjected by that time (about 22 times Earth normal, at a temperature of 153 °C).[100] It would have melted thereafter, and possibly vaporized. The Galileo orbiter itself experienced a more rapid version of the same fate when it was deliberately steered into the planet on September 21, 2003, at a speed of over 50 km/s, to avoid any possibility of it crashing into and possibly contaminating Europa—a moon which has been hypothesized to have the possibility of harboring life.[99]

Future probes

NASA currently has a mission underway to study Jupiter in detail from a polar orbit. Named Juno, the spacecraft launched in August 2011, and will arrive in late 2016.[101] The next planned mission to the Jovian system will be the European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE), due to launch in 2022.[102]

Canceled missions

Because of the possibility of subsurface liquid oceans on Jupiter's moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, there has been great interest in studying the icy moons in detail. Funding difficulties have delayed progress. NASA's JIMO (Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter) was cancelled in 2005.[103] A subsequent proposal for a joint NASA/ESA mission, called EJSM/Laplace, was developed with a provisional launch date around 2020. EJSM/Laplace would have consisted of the NASA-led Jupiter Europa Orbiter, and the ESA-led Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter.[104] However by April 2011, ESA had formally ended the partnership citing budget issues at NASA and the consequences on the mission timetable. Instead ESA planned to go ahead with a European-only mission to compete in its L1 Cosmic Vision selection.[105]


Jupiter with the Galilean moons
Main article: Moons of Jupiter


Galilean moons

Main article: Galilean moons
The Galilean moons. From left to right, in order of increasing distance from Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto.

The orbits of Io, Europa, and Ganymede, some of the largest satellites in the Solar System, form a pattern known as a Laplace resonance; for every four orbits that Io makes around Jupiter, Europa makes exactly two orbits and Ganymede makes exactly one. This resonance causes the gravitational effects of the three large moons to distort their orbits into elliptical shapes, since each moon receives an extra tug from its neighbors at the same point in every orbit it makes. The tidal force from Jupiter, on the other hand, works to circularize their orbits.[107]


The Galilean moons, compared to Earth's Moon
Name IPA Diameter Mass Orbital radius Orbital period
km  % kg  % km  % days  %
Io ˈaɪ.oʊ 3643 105 8.9×1022 120 421,700 110 1.77 7
Europa jʊˈroʊpə 3122 90 4.8×1022 65 671,034 175 3.55 13
Ganymede ˈɡænimiːd 5262 150 14.8×1022 200 1,070,412 280 7.15 26
Callisto kəˈlɪstoʊ 4821 140 10.8×1022 150 1,882,709 490 16.69 61

Classification of moons

Jupiter's moon Europa.


A basic sub-division is a grouping of the eight inner regular moons, which have nearly circular orbits near the plane of Jupiter's equator and are believed to have formed with Jupiter. The remainder of the moons consist of an unknown number of small irregular moons with elliptical and inclined orbits, which are believed to be captured asteroids or fragments of captured asteroids. Irregular moons that belong to a group share similar orbital elements and thus may have a common origin, perhaps as a larger moon or captured body that broke up.[108][109]

Regular moons
Galilean moons[110] These four moons, discovered by Galileo Galilei and by Simon Marius in parallel, orbit between 400,000 and 2,000,000 km, and include some of the largest moons in the Solar System.
Irregular moons
Pasiphaë group A dispersed and only vaguely distinct retrograde group that covers all the outermost moons.

Interaction with the Solar System



Along with its moons, Jupiter's gravitational field controls numerous asteroids that have settled into the regions of the Lagrangian points preceding and following Jupiter in its orbit around the sun. These are known as the Trojan asteroids, and are divided into Greek and Trojan "camps" to commemorate the Iliad. The first of these, 588 Achilles, was discovered by Max Wolf in 1906; since then more than two thousand have been discovered.[112] The largest is 624 Hektor.

Most short-period comets belong to the Jupiter family—defined as comets with semi-major axes smaller than Jupiter's. Jupiter family comets are believed to form in the Kuiper belt outside the orbit of Neptune. During close encounters with Jupiter their orbits are perturbed into a smaller period and then circularized by regular gravitational interaction with the Sun and Jupiter.[113]


Hubble image taken on July 23 showing a blemish of about 5,000 miles long left by the 2009 Jupiter impact.[114]

Jupiter has been called the Solar System's vacuum cleaner,[115] because of its immense gravity well and location near the inner Solar System. It receives the most frequent comet impacts of the Solar System's planets.[116] It was thought that the planet served to partially shield the inner system from cometary bombardment. Recent computer simulations suggest that Jupiter does not cause a net decrease in the number of comets that pass through the inner Solar System, as its gravity perturbs their orbits inward in roughly the same numbers that it accretes or ejects them.[117] This topic remains controversial among astronomers, as some believe it draws comets towards Earth from the Kuiper belt while others believe that Jupiter protects Earth from the alleged Oort cloud.[118]

A 1997 survey of historical astronomical drawings suggested that the astronomer Cassini may have recorded an impact scar in 1690. The survey determined eight other candidate observations had low or no possibilities of an impact.[119] A fireball was photographed by Voyager 1 during its Jupiter encounter in March 1979.[120] During the period July 16, 1994, to July 22, 1994, over 20 fragments from the comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 (SL9, formally designated D/1993 F2) collided with Jupiter's southern hemisphere, providing the first direct observation of a collision between two Solar System objects. This impact provided useful data on the composition of Jupiter's atmosphere.[121][122]

On July 19, 2009, an impact site was discovered at approximately 216 degrees longitude in System 2.[123][124] This impact left behind a black spot in Jupiter's atmosphere, similar in size to Oval BA. Infrared observation showed a bright spot where the impact took place, meaning the impact warmed up the lower atmosphere in the area near Jupiter's south pole.[125]

A fireball, smaller than the previous observed impacts, was detected on June 3, 2010, by Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer in Australia, and was later discovered to have been captured on video by another amateur astronomer in the Philippines.[126] Yet another fireball was seen on August 20, 2010.[127]

On September 10, 2012, another fireball was detected.[120][128]

Possibility of life

Further information: Extraterrestrial life

In 1953, the Miller–Urey experiment demonstrated that a combination of lightning and the chemical compounds that existed in the atmosphere of a primordial Earth could form organic compounds (including amino acids) that could serve as the building blocks of life. The simulated atmosphere included water, methane, ammonia and molecular hydrogen; all molecules still found in the atmosphere of Jupiter. The atmosphere of Jupiter has a strong vertical air circulation, which would carry these compounds down into the lower regions. The higher temperatures within the interior of the atmosphere breaks down these chemicals, which would hinder the formation of Earth-like life.[129]

It is considered highly unlikely that there is any Earth-like life on Jupiter, as there is only a small amount of water in the atmosphere and any possible solid surface deep within Jupiter would be under extraordinary pressures. In 1976, before the Voyager missions, it was hypothesized that ammonia or water-based life could evolve in Jupiter's upper atmosphere. This hypothesis is based on the ecology of terrestrial seas which have simple photosynthetic plankton at the top level, fish at lower levels feeding on these creatures, and marine predators which hunt the fish.[130][131]

The possible presence of underground oceans on some of Jupiter's moons has led to speculation that the presence of life is more likely there.


Jupiter, woodcut from a 1550 edition of Guido Bonatti's Liber Astronomiae.

The planet Jupiter has been known since ancient times. It is visible to the naked eye in the night sky and can occasionally be seen in the daytime when the sun is low.[132] To the Babylonians, this object represented their god Marduk. They used the roughly 12-year orbit of this planet along the ecliptic to define the constellations of their zodiac.[21][133]

The Romans named it after Jupiter (Latin: Iuppiter, Iūpiter) (also called Jove), the principal god of Roman mythology, whose name comes from the Proto-Indo-European vocative compound *Dyēu-pəter (nominative: *Dyēus-pətēr, meaning "O Father Sky-God", or "O Father Day-God").[134] In turn, Jupiter was the counterpart to the mythical Greek Zeus (Ζεύς), also referred to as Dias (Δίας), the planetary name of which is retained in modern Greek.[135]

The astronomical symbol for the planet, ♃, is a stylized representation of the god's lightning bolt. The original Greek deity Zeus supplies the root zeno-, used to form some Jupiter-related words, such as zenographic.[136]

Jovian is the adjectival form of Jupiter. The older adjectival form jovial, employed by astrologers in the Middle Ages, has come to mean "happy" or "merry," moods ascribed to Jupiter's astrological influence.[137]

The Chinese, Korean and Japanese referred to the planet as the "wood star" (Chinese: 木星; pinyin: mùxīng), based on the Chinese Five Elements.[138] Chinese Taoism personified it as the Fu star. The Greeks called it Φαέθων, Phaethon, "blazing." In Vedic Astrology, Hindu astrologers named the planet after Brihaspati, the religious teacher of the gods, and often called it "Guru", which literally means the "Heavy One."[139] In the English language, Thursday is derived from "Thor's day", with Thor associated with the planet Jupiter in Germanic mythology.[140]

In the Central Asian-Turkic myths, Jupiter called as a "Erendiz/Erentüz", which means "eren(?)+yultuz(star)". There are many theories about meaning of "eren". Also, these peoples calculated the orbit of Jupiter as 11 years and 300 days. They believed that some social and natural events connected to Erentüz's movements on the sky.[141]

See also


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Further reading

  • Bagenal, F.; Dowling, T. E.; McKinnon, W. B., eds. (2004). Jupiter: The planet, satellites, and magnetosphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-81808-7. 
  • Beebe, Reta (1997). Jupiter: The Giant Planet (Second ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 1-56098-731-6. 

External links