The Jovian system
By Mike Barrett
The Jovian system encompasses Jupiter, its rings and moons. Jupiter was reputedly discovered by the Babylonians some 9,000 years ago. Its moons were discovered by Galileo, in 1610, observed through a refracting telescope.
The Planet Jupiter
• Jupiter is the fifth planet in our Solar System counting out from the Sun. It is 5.2 astronomical Units away from the Sun, or 5.2 times further away from the Sun than the Earth.
• A Jovian year is 11.9 Earth years, but the Jovian day is just 9 hours 55 minutes.
• Jupiter has an equatorial radius of about 44,000 miles compared to the Earth’ s of just under 4,000 miles, making it 11 times larger than the Earth. It is the largest of the Gas Giants which makes it the biggest planet in the Solar System. Jupiter is so big that it contains more matter than all of the other planets combined.
• Jupiter is a Gas Giant, with it’ s atmosphere being mainly composed of hydrogen and helium. In this respect it is very similar to the Sun with a mass proportion of around four hydrogen to one helium.
• The apparent surface of the planet if formed of gaseous clouds. These clouds are active in a very violent storm system. The storms last very long periods of time as there is no land mass to disperse them.
• Little is known about the internal composition of the planet, but it is speculated that it has a small, very dense rock and ice core that is encompassed by dense metallic hydrogen. As it is not possible to see through the clouds the presence of a surface cannot be determined. It is possible that there is no surface and that an object sinking through the atmosphere would just become more and more compressed the lower it went.
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