Why jupiter is the best planet

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With four large moons and many smaller moons, Jupiter forms a kind of miniature solar system. Jupiter has 53 confirmed moons and 26 provisional moons awaiting confirmation of discovery. Moons are named after they are confirmed. Jupiter's four largest moons — Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto — were first observed by the astronomer Galileo Galilei in using an early version of the telescope.

These four moons are known today as the Galilean satellites, and they're some of the most fascinating destinations in our solar system. Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system even bigger than the planet Mercury. A liquid-water ocean with the ingredients for life may lie beneath the frozen crust of Europa, making it a tempting place to explore.

Discovered in by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, Jupiter's rings were a surprise, as they are composed of small, dark particles and are difficult to see except when backlit by the Sun. Data from the Galileo spacecraft indicate that Jupiter's ring system may be formed by dust kicked up as interplanetary meteoroids smash into the giant planet's small innermost moons.

Jupiter took shape when the rest of the solar system formed about 4. Jupiter took most of the mass left over after the formation of the Sun, ending up with more than twice the combined material of the other bodies in the solar system. In fact, Jupiter has the same ingredients as a star, but it did not grow massive enough to ignite. About 4 billion years ago, Jupiter settled into its current position in the outer solar system, where it is the fifth planet from the Sun.

The composition of Jupiter is similar to that of the Sun — mostly hydrogen and helium. Deep in the atmosphere, pressure and temperature increase, compressing the hydrogen gas into a liquid. This gives Jupiter the largest ocean in the solar system — an ocean made of hydrogen instead of water.

Scientists think that, at depths perhaps halfway to the planet's center, the pressure becomes so great that electrons are squeezed off the hydrogen atoms, making the liquid electrically conducting like metal. Jupiter's fast rotation is thought to drive electrical currents in this region, generating the planet's powerful magnetic field.

It is still unclear if deeper down, Jupiter has a central core of solid material or if it may be a thick, super-hot and dense soup. It could be up to 90, degrees Fahrenheit 50, degrees Celsius down there, made mostly of iron and silicate minerals similar to quartz.

The planet is mostly swirling gases and liquids. Less than a decade later, it received a namesake chemical element: uranium, discovered in The more astronomers studied this new planet, the clearer it became that it was an odd one.

Consider the seasons on a world turned sideways: Summer on Uranus is two decades of non-stop sunlight, and winter is an equal amount of time spent in total darkness, facing the cold void of distant space. Day and night only exist during spring and fall, where they cycle every 17 hours. Some have suggested that the planet was knocked askew by a gravitational tug-of-war with a large moon that has since been lost; others have proposed that it was the result of a collision with a massive object much larger than Earth , or even multiple collisions.

While the other gas planets are still slowly radiating out the heat of their formation, Uranus generates hardly any internal heat at all. Methane gas absorbs light on the red end of the spectrum, giving Uranus its blue-green hue.

If you were to fly down through the layers of the atmosphere, the surrounding clouds would grow denser and denser, colder and colder, bluer and bluer as the gases absorbed more of the visible spectrum. Some astronomers believe the warped field may be the result of vast oceans of ionic liquids hidden beneath the greenish clouds, full of water, ammonia, or even liquefied diamond.

A planet made from the cloud that formed the moment the sun was born. A gas giant that contains more than twice the material of all the other planets in our solar system combined. Huge enough to house 1, Earths, and with a midsection that spans 44, miles.

The radius of Earth is 3, miles. Jupiter, where winds blow at several hundred miles an hour constantly—as in, all the time and without letting up. Jupiter, where the average temperature is a frigid degrees below zero, but where it gets hotter than lava at lower and lower cloud layers.

Jupiter, which gives off more heat than it gets from the sun. Jupiter, where the raging weather includes a mammoth anti-hurricane that has been churning for something like years. From far away, the planet looks vaguely beige.

But its clouds are a kaleidoscope of warm colors—alternately red, orange, pink, and tan, with some blue. When scientists observed fireballs raining down on Jupiter in , they looked like little dots from afar.