Some Geek Told Me’s Tour of the Solar System is now one year old, and just like inflation, the end is nowhere in sight. Even though it’s a one-way relationship, I love space and everything in it, which sounds quite oxymoronic.
This tour is not for everybody or the faint of heart. Dubbed by the New Zealand Sour Cream and Chives Preservation Society, “…the worst example of science communication this country has seen, since your uncle tried to explain hydroponics to his dog.” Harsh, but fair.
Today marks the 11th tour stop, with the previous stops are as follows:
1.) Meet the Family
2.) The Sun
4.) Mercury
5.) Venus
7.) The Moon
8.) Mars
10.) Ceres
Our last stop was the dwarf planet, Ceres, which is located in the Asteroid Belt. So, if you’ve been travelling along with us, you will realise that the next stop is rather large. It’s time to meet Jupiter!
There’s more information about Jupiter, than you can shake a stick at, on your best stick-shaking day. Because of this, today’s tour stop won’t be covering everything, but I’ll still give it a go.
Just like going to a speed dating event, let’s cover some basic information about the biggest sibling in the family. Jupiter is the fifth planet from our local natural fission factory and the first of the Outer Planets or gas planets.
To the best of my knowledge and understanding, Jupiter was formed around 4.6 billion years ago, making it older than Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars; otherwise known as the Inner Planets or the terrestrial planets.
Jupiter was named after the Roman King of the Gods, … pause for dramatic effect, Jupiter! For context, the Ancient Greek equivalent was Zeus.
For its size, Jupiter would be fighting in the heavyweight bouts. If you heard the gossip from Vicky from accounting, you would know that Jupiter is the second largest object in the Solar System; behind the Sun, and the largest planet in the Solar System.
It has a diameter of 142,984 km, which seems not bad. However, when you compare Jupiter’s size to Earth’s diameter of 12,740 km, you finally get the sense that Jupiter is truly colossal; a real giant. Jupiter is so massive, it could fit 1,300 Earths inside it. To me, that is insane.
Jupiter’s orbit is quite extraordinary also. Just like the Earth, it has an elliptical orbit. Jupiter’s perihelion is roughly 741 million km, while its aphelion is 817 million km. This means the average distance from the Sun to Jupiter is about 778 million km, with an orbital speed of 13.07 km/s.
Another cool aspect of Jupiter’s orbit is its barycentre. The centre of an object’s mass or its centre of gravity, is where the most amount of mass is located; like the middle of a ruler, or the head of a hammer.
In astronomy, two objects that orbit each other will also have a centre of mass, which is the point that the objects orbit. This is known as the barycentre point, and it is usually found near the object with the largest amount of mass.
For an example, between the Sun and the Earth, the barycentre lies close to the Sun’s centre. Jupiter is different because it has a lot more mass than the Earth, so the barycentre between the Sun and Jupiter, is not near the Sun’s centre; it’s an empty point in space, just away from the surface of the Sun!
And just like a Star Wars wipe transition, this brings us to time. With Jupiter’s rotation and orbital period, it takes Jupiter 10 Earth hours to rotate once, which makes it the shortest day in the Solar System. A Jovian year equals 4,333 Earth days, which is about 11.8 Earth years.
What this means is that the last time Jupiter was located at its present location; and at the time of this writing, Barack Obama was still in his first term, The Avengers were smashing cinemas worldwide, the second season of Game of Thrones was screening, and Somebody That I Used to Know was breaking hearts everywhere.
I also need to mention, much to Gollum’s disgust, that Jupiter put a ring on it. By this I mean, Jupiter is the first planet on our tour that has rings! Yes, that is not a mistake, Jupiter has rings! They weren’t discovered until 1979, thanks to the Voyager 1 space probe.
Jupiter has four rings, but they are very different from Saturn’s. Jupiter’s rings are very thin and faint, as they are mainly made from dust; which is different from the household variety. We’re talking about micro-particles made from rocks and minerals.
Scientists love to give terrible names to things, and the Jovian rings are no exception. Starting as the closest to Jupiter and moving outwards, we have the halo ring, the main ring, the Amalthea gossamer ring, and the Thebe gossamer ring. If you think these names are terrible, just wait for the rings of Saturn!
Not only does Jupiter have memberships to two exclusive clubs; the gas giants, and the rings clubs, but it also has moons! And when I mean moons, I mean it has more moons than Tony Stark has Iron Man suits. Currently, the International Astronomical Union has officially recognised 95 moons in the Jovian System.
The four largest of these moons, are Io, Callisto, Europa and Ganymede. They’re also known as the Galilean moons, as they were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610, through the use of a telescope.
This made the Galilean moons the first objects in the Solar System to be discovered since humanity had been observing the planets, as well as the first objects to be found to orbit any planet that was beyond Earth.
The Galilean moons are an interest to scientists, for the possibility of harbouring life. Granted, if life does exist on one of the moons, it would be in the form of microorganisms, but who would be complaining?
It won’t be a surprise to learn that Space deniers, Flat Earthers, and supporters of the Ptolemaic model, view the Galilean moons with a level of disdain that rivals the height of Olympus Mons. It is also interesting to note that Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System; along with actually being larger than Mercury.
Because Jupiter is a gas giant, and unlike the terrestrial planets, it doesn’t have a true surface. Because of Jupiter’s size and mass, the atmospheric pressure would be greater than the bottom of Earth’s oceans. Jupiter is a death trap for people and spacecraft.
Like Earth’s atmosphere, the atmosphere of Jupiter is divided into layers or zones. The upper atmosphere contains about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium by volume, and 75% hydrogen and 24% helium by mass, with the remaining 1% made from other elements. The lower atmosphere is dense and consists of 71% hydrogen, 24% helium and 5% comes from other elements.
Jupiter’s atmosphere has also given the Solar System some pretty crazy weather. Winds have been recorded at the equator, clocking in at 539 km/h; it has raging cyclones and anticyclones; as well as the Big Red Spot. This is a famous high-pressure storm, that has been raging for centuries. As you can imagine, the Big Red Spot looks like a Big Red Spot. I told you scientists love giving terrible names to things.
Over the years, the Big Red Spot appears to be decreasing. Of course, this means future generations will only see the Big Red Spot in textbooks and photographs because it’s going to completely disperse. If they have access to a TARDIS, then it’s not a problem!
As I said near the start of this tremendous piece of science literature, there’s so much information about Jupiter to discuss, but as usual, I have run out of time. Well…not quite. I want to turn the amplifier up to eleven before I go.
Because of its size, Jupiter has the largest and strongest magnetic field of any planet in the Solar System, however, the Sun’s magnetic field is stronger. Jupiter’s magnetic field is 16-54 times stronger than Earth’s, and it extends 1-3 million km, in the direction of the Sun, as well as 1 billion km towards Saturn. This works out to about 7-21 times Jupiter’s diameter; which is larger than Rishi Sunak’s ego.
In addition to this, Jupiter acts as a bodyguard for the rest of the Solar System. Jupiter’s gravity well is so massive, that it attracts and diverts comets and asteroids into the Jovian System. This accounts for the extremely high rate of impacts in the Jovian System, and some scientists speculate, that this is why life on Earth has survived, because Jupiter keeps taking bullets for us.
Well, that’s it for another week. What’s your favourite fact about Jupiter? As always, please let me know. Some Geek Told Me’s Tour of the Solar System will return next month, so please keep your tickets, as there are no refunds.
Thanks once again for reading, following, and subscribing to Some Geek Told Me. I’m also on Twitter and Mastodon, where I give the impression that I’m cool. Please don’t forget to walk your dog, read a banned book, keep watching the African Cup of Nations games, and I’ll see you next week when I’m going to discuss an unassuming $83.3 million.
You must be logged in to post a comment.