presentation of jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from our Sun and is, by far, the largest planet in the solar system – more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. Jupiter's stripes and swirls are actually cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water, floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot is a giant storm bigger than Earth that has raged for hundreds of years.

Jupiter is surrounded by dozens of moons. Jupiter also has several rings, but unlike the famous rings of Saturn, Jupiter’s rings are very faint and made of dust, not ice.

Jupiter, being the biggest planet, gets its name from the king of the ancient Roman gods.

Potential for Life

Jupiter’s environment is probably not conducive to life as we know it. The temperatures, pressures, and materials that characterize this planet are most likely too extreme and volatile for organisms to adapt to.

While planet Jupiter is an unlikely place for living things to take hold, the same is not true of some of its many moons. Europa is one of the likeliest places to find life elsewhere in our solar system. There is evidence of a vast ocean just beneath its icy crust, where life could possibly be supported.

Size and Distance

With a radius of 43,440.7 miles (69,911 kilometers), Jupiter is 11 times wider than Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, Jupiter would be about as big as a basketball.

From an average distance of 484 million miles (778 million kilometers), Jupiter is 5.2 astronomical units away from the Sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes Sunlight 43 minutes to travel from the Sun to Jupiter.

Orbit and Rotation

Jupiter has the shortest day in the solar system. One day on Jupiter takes only about 10 hours (the time it takes for Jupiter to rotate or spin around once), and Jupiter makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year in Jovian time) in about 12 Earth years (4,333 Earth days).

Its equator is tilted with respect to its orbital path around the Sun by just 3 degrees. This means Jupiter spins nearly upright and does not have seasons as extreme as other planets do.

With four large moons and many smaller moons, Jupiter forms a kind of miniature solar system. Jupiter has 80 moons. Fifty-seven moons have been given official names by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Another 23 moons are awaiting names.

Jupiter's four largest moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – were first observed by the astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1610 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). Callisto’s very few small craters indicate a small degree of current surface activity. A liquid-water ocean with the ingredients for life may lie beneath the frozen crust of Europa, making it a tempting place to explore.

› More on Jupiter's Moons

Discovered in 1979 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 4.5 billion years ago when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become this gas giant. 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 90,032 degrees Fahrenheit (50,000 degrees Celsius) down there, made mostly of iron and silicate minerals (similar to quartz).

As a gas giant, Jupiter doesn’t have a true surface. The planet is mostly swirling gases and liquids. While a spacecraft would have nowhere to land on Jupiter, it wouldn’t be able to fly through unscathed either. The extreme pressures and temperatures deep inside the planet crush, melt, and vaporize spacecraft trying to fly into the planet.

Jupiter's appearance is a tapestry of colorful cloud bands and spots. The gas planet likely has three distinct cloud layers in its "skies" that, taken together, span about 44 miles (71 kilometers). The top cloud is probably made of ammonia ice, while the middle layer is likely made of ammonium hydrosulfide crystals. The innermost layer may be made of water ice and vapor.

The vivid colors you see in thick bands across Jupiter may be plumes of sulfur and phosphorus-containing gases rising from the planet's warmer interior. Jupiter's fast rotation – spinning once every 10 hours – creates strong jet streams, separating its clouds into dark belts and bright zones across long stretches.

With no solid surface to slow them down, Jupiter's spots can persist for many years. Stormy Jupiter is swept by over a dozen prevailing winds, some reaching up to 335 miles per hour (539 kilometers per hour) at the equator. The Great Red Spot, a swirling oval of clouds twice as wide as Earth, has been observed on the giant planet for more than 300 years. More recently, three smaller ovals merged to form the Little Red Spot, about half the size of its larger cousin.

Findings from NASA’s Juno probe released in October 2021 provide a fuller picture of what’s going on below those clouds. Data from Juno shows that Jupiter’s cyclones are warmer on top, with lower atmospheric densities, while they are colder at the bottom, with higher densities. Anticyclones, which rotate in the opposite direction, are colder at the top but warmer at the bottom.

The findings also indicate these storms are far taller than expected, with some extending 60 miles (100 kilometers) below the cloud tops and others, including the Great Red Spot, extending over 200 miles (350 kilometers). This surprising discovery demonstrates that the vortices cover regions beyond those where water condenses and clouds form, below the depth where sunlight warms the atmosphere.

The height and size of the Great Red Spot mean the concentration of atmospheric mass within the storm potentially could be detectable by instruments studying Jupiter’s gravity field. Two close Juno flybys over Jupiter’s most famous spot provided the opportunity to search for the storm’s gravity signature and complement the other results on its depth.

With their gravity data, the Juno team was able to constrain the extent of the Great Red Spot to a depth of about 300 miles (500 kilometers) below the cloud tops.

Belts and Zones In addition to cyclones and anticyclones, Jupiter is known for its distinctive belts and zones – white and reddish bands of clouds that wrap around the planet. Strong east-west winds moving in opposite directions separate the bands. Juno previously discovered that these winds, or jet streams, reach depths of about 2,000 miles (roughly 3,200 kilometers). Researchers are still trying to solve the mystery of how the jet streams form. Data collected by Juno during multiple passes reveal one possible clue: that the atmosphere’s ammonia gas travels up and down in remarkable alignment with the observed jet streams.

Juno’s data also shows that the belts and zones undergo a transition around 40 miles (65 kilometers) beneath Jupiter’s water clouds. At shallow depths, Jupiter’s belts are brighter in microwave light than the neighboring zones. But at deeper levels, below the water clouds, the opposite is true – which reveals a similarity to our oceans.

Polar Cyclones Juno previously discovered polygonal arrangements of giant cyclonic storms at both of Jupiter’s poles – eight arranged in an octagonal pattern in the north and five arranged in a pentagonal pattern in the south. Over time, mission scientists determined these atmospheric phenomena are extremely resilient, remaining in the same location.

Juno data also indicates that, like hurricanes on Earth, these cyclones want to move poleward, but cyclones located at the center of each pole push them back. This balance explains where the cyclones reside and the different numbers at each pole.

Magnetosphere

The Jovian magnetosphere is the region of space influenced by Jupiter's powerful magnetic field. It balloons 600,000 to 2 million miles (1 to 3 million kilometers) toward the Sun (seven to 21 times the diameter of Jupiter itself) and tapers into a tadpole-shaped tail extending more than 600 million miles (1 billion kilometers) behind Jupiter, as far as Saturn's orbit. Jupiter's enormous magnetic field is 16 to 54 times as powerful as that of the Earth. It rotates with the planet and sweeps up particles that have an electric charge. Near the planet, the magnetic field traps swarms of charged particles and accelerates them to very high energies, creating intense radiation that bombards the innermost moons and can damage spacecraft.

Jupiter's magnetic field also causes some of the solar system's most spectacular aurorae at the planet's poles.

• NASA Planetary Photojournal - Jupiter
• Planetary Rings Node
• NASA's Juno Mission

Planet Jupiter, explained

From its mysterious core to its stormy surface, there's plenty to learn about the fifth planet from the sun.

The fifth planet from the sun, Jupiter is what watercolor dreams are made of. Vibrant bands of clouds ripple around its thick atmosphere, making up a world so large that more than 1,300 Earths could fit inside. Its Great Red Spot seems to peer out from the swirling vapors like an enormous eye in the face of a striped giant.

Though seemingly serene when viewed from the relative safety of our home world, Jupiter is a chaotic and stormy place . The gas giant planet's spots and swirls come from massive storms that whip up prevailing winds as fast as 335 miles an hour at the equator—faster than any known winds on Earth.

That includes the Great Red Spot, which is a massive hurricane-like storm called an anticyclone. It's far bigger and longer lasting than any tempests that have ever raged across our planet's surface: It rotates in an ever-present oval that's more than the width of the entire Earth, although it has been shrinking for as long as humans have been observing it.

Gas, liquid, or solid?

Jupiter is a massive ball of gas. Its clouds are composed of ammonia and water vapor drifting in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. The particular cloud chemistries are likely the magic behind the planet's vibrant colors, but the exact reasons for Jupiter's painted appearance remains unknown.

Below the gassy upper layers, the pressure and temperature increase so much that atoms of hydrogen eventually compress into a liquid. Pressures climb so high that the hydrogen loses its electrons, and the soupy mess can host an electrical charge, just like metal.

The planet's fast spin on its axis means that one Jupiter day lasts less than 10 Earth hours, and it sparks electrical currents that may drive the planet's intense and massive magnetic field, which is 16 to 54 times as powerful as Earth's.

Multitude of moons

Jupiter is the second brightest planet in the night sky, after Venus , which allowed early astronomers to spot and study the massive planet hundreds of years ago. In January 1610, astronomer Galileo Galilei spotted what he thought were four small stars tagging along with Jupiter. These pinpricks of light are actually Jupiter's four largest moons, now known as the Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

Many of these celestial orbs are as remarkable as Jupiter itself. The largest moon in the solar system, Ganymede is also the only moon known to have its own magnetic field. Volcanoes rage on Io's surface, earning it the title of the solar system's most volcanically active body. And scientists believe Europa sports a deep, vast ocean beneath its icy crust , making it a top candidate in the hunt for alien life.

But these are not the planet's only celestial tag-alongs. Jupiter has dozens more—and there may still be more to find. In 2003 alone, astronomers identified 23 new moons. And in June of 2018, researchers discovered 12 more Jovian moons that wander in oddball paths around the giant world.

Missions to Jupiter

Since Galileo first laid telescope-enhanced eyes on Jupiter, scientists have continued to study the curious world from both the ground and the sky. In 1979, NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft zipped by the gas giant, taking tens of thousands of pictures as they passed by. Among the surprises from these missions, the data revealed that giant Jupiter sports thin, dusty rings.

And when NASA's Juno spacecraft began orbiting Jupiter in 2016, it quickly started sending back breathtaking images. The stunning pictures revealed that the planet is even more wild than we once thought. Juno returned some of the first detailed looks at the planet's poles , which revealed cyclone swarms gyrating on its surface with roots that likely extend deep below the upper bands of clouds .

Though Jupiter has been so intensely examined, many mysteries remain. One enduring question is what drives Jupiter's Great Red Spot, and what will happen to it in the future. Then there's the question of what actually lies at Jupiter's core. Magnetic field data from the Juno spacecraft suggest that the planet's core is surprisingly large and seems to be made of a partially dissolved solid material. Whatever that is, it's searing hot. Scientists estimate the temperature in this region could be up to 90,032 degrees Fahrenheit —hot enough to melt titanium.

For Hungry Minds

Related topics.

• SOLAR SYSTEM
• SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
• JUNO MISSION

You May Also Like

9 spectacular night sky events to see in 2024

4.5 billion years ago, another planet crashed into Earth. We may have found its leftovers.

Is there a 9th planet out there? We may soon find out.

Planet circling a burned-out star offers a glimpse at the solar system's fate

Planet 9 may be closer and easier to find than thought—if it exists

• Paid Content
• Environment
• Photography
• Perpetual Planet

History & Culture

• History & Culture
• History Magazine
• Mind, Body, Wonder
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Your US State Privacy Rights
• Children's Online Privacy Policy
• Interest-Based Ads
• About Nielsen Measurement
• Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
• Nat Geo Home
• Attend a Live Event
• Book a Trip
• Inspire Your Kids
• Shop Nat Geo
• Visit the D.C. Museum
• Learn About Our Impact
• Support Our Mission
• Advertise With Us
• Customer Service
• Renew Subscription
• Manage Your Subscription
• Work at Nat Geo
• Sign Up for Our Newsletters
• Contribute to Protect the Planet

Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society Copyright © 2015-2024 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved

Jupiter 101

Jupiter is the oldest and most massive world in the solar system. Learn about the planet's origin story, its Great Red Spot and oceanic moons, and how this ancient world influenced the formation of the solar system's other planets.

Earth Science, Astronomy

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Web Producer

Last updated.

October 19, 2023

User Permissions

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service .

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

Related Resources

Hubble Maps Jupiter in 4k Ultra HD

• Released Tuesday, October 13, 2015

New imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope is revealing details never before seen on Jupiter. Hubble’s new Jupiter maps were used to create this Ultra HD animation.Watch this video on the NASA Explorer YouTube channel.

• G2015-085_Jupiter720_MASTER_prores.mov (1280x720) [917.9 MB]
• G2015-085_Jupiter720_MASTER_nasa_tv.mpeg (1280x720) [249.3 MB]
• G2015-085_Jupiter720_MASTER.mp4 (1280x720) [98.9 MB]
• G2015-085_Jupiter720_MASTER_appletv.m4v (1280x720) [39.0 MB]
• WEBM_G2015-085_Jupiter4k_MASTER_YouTube.webm (960x540) [28.5 MB]
• G2015-085_Jupiter720_MASTER_appletv_appletv_subtitles.m4v (1280x720) [39.0 MB]
• G2015-085_Jupiter4k_MASTER.mov (3840x2160) [4.5 GB]
• G2015-085_Jupiter4k_MASTER_YouTube.mp4 (3840x2160) [495.9 MB]
• G2015-085_Jupiter720_MASTER.en_US.srt [98 bytes]
• G2015-085_Jupiter720_MASTER.en_US.vtt [111 bytes]
• JupiterThumbnailSmall.png (2160x1215) [1.4 MB]

Presentations

• G2015-085_Jupiter720_.key [41.8 MB]
• G2015-085_Jupiter720_.pptx [39.3 MB]
• G2015-085_Jupiter720_MASTER_12021.key [41.7 MB]
• G2015-085_Jupiter720_MASTER_12021.pptx [39.3 MB]

These new maps and spinning globes of Jupiter were made from observations performed with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. They are the first products to come from a program to study the solar system’s outer planets – Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and, later, Saturn – each year using Hubble. The observations are designed to capture a broad range of features, including winds, clouds, storms and atmospheric chemistry. These annual studies will help current and future scientists see how these giant worlds change over time.

Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the University of California at Berkeley produced two global maps of Jupiter from the observations, which were made using Hubble’s high-performance Wide Field Camera 3.

The two maps represent nearly back-to-back rotations of the planet, making it possible to determine the speeds of Jupiter’s winds. Already, the images have revealed a rare wave just north of the planet’s equator and a unique filament-like feature in the core of the Great Red Spot that had not been seen previously.

In addition, the new images confirm that the Great Red Spot continues to shrink and become more circular, as it has been doing for years. The long axis of this characteristic storm is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) shorter now than it was in 2014. Recently, the storm had been shrinking at a faster-than-usual rate, but the latest change is consistent with the long-term trend.

Spinning globe of Jupiter, made from first new Hubble map

• Jupiter01-H264_1920x1080.mp4 (1920x1080) [18.7 MB]
• Jupiter01-H264_1280x720.mp4 (1280x720) [11.4 MB]
• WEBM_Jupiter01-H264_1920x1080.webm (960x540) [4.7 MB]
• Jupiter01_ProRes4444_3840x2160p60.mov (3840x2160) [5.3 GB]
• Jupiter01_3840x2160p60_H264.mp4 (3840x2160) [85.6 MB]
• Jupiter01_3840x2160p60.mov (3840x2160) [10.8 GB]
• Jupiter01 (3840x2160) [128.0 KB]
• Jupiter01-H264_1920x1080_print.jpg (1024x576) [41.9 KB]
• Jupiter01-H264_1920x1080_thm.png (80x40) [3.0 KB]
• Jupiter01-H264_1920x1080_searchweb.png (180x320) [32.2 KB]
• jupiter01_12021.key [14.9 MB]
• jupiter01_12021.pptx [12.4 MB]

Spinning globe of Jupiter, made from second new Hubble map

• Jupiter02-H264_1920x1080.mp4 (1920x1080) [18.7 MB]
• Jupiter02-H264_1280x720.mp4 (1280x720) [11.4 MB]
• WEBM_Jupiter02-H264_1920x1080.webm (960x540) [4.7 MB]
• Jupiter02_3840x2160p60.mov (3840x2160) [10.8 GB]
• Jupiter02 (3840x2160) [128.0 KB]
• Jupiter02_3840x2160p60_print.jpg (1024x576) [42.0 KB]
• jupiter02_12021.key [13.4 MB]
• jupiter02_12021.pptx [10.9 MB]
• Hubble_Jupiter_color_global_map_2015a_print.jpg (1024x512) [115.4 KB]
• Hubble_Jupiter_color_global_map_2015a.tif (3600x1800) [18.6 MB]

First global map of Jupiter (flat)

• Hubble_Jupiter_color_global_map_2015b_print.jpg (1024x512) [95.9 KB]
• Hubble_Jupiter_color_global_map_2015b.tif (3600x1800) [18.6 MB]

Second global map of Jupiter (flat)

The motions of clouds can be seen in this short sequence that alternates between the first and second maps of Jupiter.

• Hubble_Jupiter_maps_compared_H264_1920x1080.mp4 (1920x1080) [4.6 MB]
• Hubble_Jupiter_maps_compared_H264_1280x720.mp4 (1280x720) [2.8 MB]
• WEBM_Hubble_Jupiter_maps_compared_H264_1920x1080.webm (960x540) [2.0 MB]
• Hubble_Jupiter_maps_compared_H264_1920x1080_print.jpg (1024x576) [100.1 KB]
• jupiterbefore-after_big.gif (1200x734) [747.6 KB]

The motions of clouds, with close-ups showing the movement of a unique filament, not seen before, in the Great Red Spot. The Great Red Spot is shown at blue (left) and red (right) wavelengths.

• Jupiterwave_falsecolor_with_arrows_and_combs.jpg.jpeg (1798x446) [384.4 KB]
• Jupiterwave_falsecolor.jpg.jpeg (1798x446) [358.8 KB]

In Jupiter’s North Equatorial Belt, scientists spotted a rare wave that had been seen there only once before. It is similar to a wave that sometimes occurs in Earth’s atmosphere when cyclones are forming. This false-color close-up of Jupiter shows cyclones (arrows) and the wave (vertical lines). This image is available with and without annotations.

For More Information

See NASA.gov

• Planets & Moons
• Atmospheric Pressure
• Earth Science
• Hubble Space Telescope
• Planetary Rotation
• Planetary Science
• Planetary/rossby Waves
• Presentation

Please give credit for this item to: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Space Telescope Science Institute

Science writer

• Elizabeth Zubritsky  (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
• Amy A. Simon  (NASA/GSFC)
• Michael H. Wong  (University of California at Berkeley)
• Glenn Orton  (NASA/JPL CalTech)
• Greg Bacon  (STScI/Aura)
• Dan Gallagher  (USRA)

Technical support

• Michael Randazzo  (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.)
• Aaron E. Lepsch  (ADNET Systems, Inc.)

Release date

This page was originally published on Tuesday, October 13, 2015. This page was last updated on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 12:19 AM EST.

• Jupiter in 4k Ultra HD (ID: 2015085) Tuesday, October 13, 2015 at 4:00AM Produced by - Dan Jacob (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)

Hubble Observes Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Changing

World’s most famous space telescope marks 30 years of exploration live shots, hubble’s brand new image of jupiter, astronauts celebrate hubble servicing mission live shots, waves and changes in jupiter's atmosphere, hubble views jupiter at opposition, new hubble views of jupiter live shots, can you #spothubble, new hubble "frontier field" image live shots, exploring jupiter's magnetic field, planetary portrait, new hubble image of mars live shots. great viewing opportunity of the red planet in late may, our solar system, used as a source in, jupiter quasi-quadrennial oscillation, you may also like..., no results., an error occurred. please reload this page and try again..

Suggested Searches

• Climate Change
• Expedition 64
• Mars perseverance
• SpaceX Crew-2
• International Space Station
• View All Topics A-Z

Humans in Space

Earth & climate.

• The Solar System

The Universe

Aeronautics, learning resources, news & events.

NASA, IBM Research to Release New AI Model for Weather, Climate

NASA Tool Gets Ready to Image Faraway Planets

NASA, Sierra Space Deliver Dream Chaser to Florida for Launch Preparation

• Search All NASA Missions
• A to Z List of Missions
• Upcoming Launches and Landings
• Spaceships and Rockets
• Communicating with Missions
• James Webb Space Telescope
• Hubble Space Telescope
• Why Go to Space
• Astronauts Home
• Commercial Space
• Destinations
• Living in Space
• Explore Earth Science
• Earth, Our Planet
• Earth Science in Action
• Earth Multimedia
• Earth Science Researchers
• Pluto & Dwarf Planets
• Asteroids, Comets & Meteors
• The Kuiper Belt
• The Oort Cloud
• Skywatching
• The Search for Life in the Universe
• Black Holes
• The Big Bang
• Dark Energy & Dark Matter
• Earth Science
• Planetary Science
• Astrophysics & Space Science
• The Sun & Heliophysics
• Biological & Physical Sciences
• Lunar Science
• Citizen Science
• Astromaterials
• Aeronautics Research
• Human Space Travel Research
• Science in the Air
• NASA Aircraft
• Flight Innovation
• Supersonic Flight
• Air Traffic Solutions
• Green Aviation Tech
• Drones & You
• Technology Transfer & Spinoffs
• Space Travel Technology
• Technology Living in Space
• Manufacturing and Materials
• Science Instruments
• For Kids and Students
• For Educators
• For Colleges and Universities
• For Professionals
• Science for Everyone
• Requests for Exhibits, Artifacts, or Speakers
• STEM Engagement at NASA
• NASA's Impacts
• Centers and Facilities
• Directorates
• Organizations
• People of NASA
• Internships
• Our History
• Doing Business with NASA
• Get Involved
• Aeronáutica
• Ciencias Terrestres
• Sistema Solar
• All NASA News
• Video Series on NASA+
• Newsletters
• Social Media
• Media Resources
• Upcoming Launches & Landings
• Virtual Events
• Sounds and Ringtones
• Interactives
• STEM Multimedia

Ongoing Venus Volcanic Activity Discovered With NASA’s Magellan Data

Clare Luckey: Shaping the Future of Mars Missions and Inspiring the Artemis Generation 

Hubble Captures a Bright Spiral in the Queen’s Hair

Welcome Back to Planet Earth, Expedition 70 Crew! 

Astronaut Exercise

Eleasa Kim: Pioneering CLDP Payload Operations and Cultural Integration

NASA “Wildfire Digital Twin” Pioneers New AI Models and Streaming Data Techniques for Forecasting Fire and Smoke

NASA’s Psyche Fires Up Its Sci-Fi-Worthy Thrusters

NASA’s Juno Provides High-Definition Views of Europa’s Icy Shell

Galaxies Actively Forming in Early Universe Caught Feeding on Cold Gas

NASA’s TESS Finds Intriguing World Sized Between Earth, Venus

Open Science News

E.11 Consortium in Biological Sciences Clarification on how to Address Eligibility

NASA, Industry to Start Designing More Sustainable Jet Engine Core

Aviary: A New NASA Software Platform for Aircraft Modelling

NASA’s X-59 Passes Milestone Toward Safe First Flight 

NASA’s Compact Infrared Cameras Enable New Science

Tech Today: From Spacesuits to Racing Suits

NASA Around the World: Interns Teach Virtual Lessons in Kenya

Jennifer Scott Williams: Leading the Next Giant Leap in Space Exploration and Championing STEM Advocacy

40 Years Ago: NASA Selects its 10th Group of Astronauts

Diez maneras en que los estudiantes pueden prepararse para ser astronautas

Astronauta de la NASA Marcos Berríos

Resultados científicos revolucionarios en la estación espacial de 2023

Nasa’s webb discovers new feature in jupiter’s atmosphere, nasa webb telescope team, image: webb's view of jupiter, image: jupiter's equatorial jet stream, image: jupiter's winds, image: zoom in on webb's view of jupiter, media contacts, related information.

Narrow jet stream near equator has winds traveling 320 miles per hour

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a new, never-before-seen feature in Jupiter’s atmosphere. The high-speed jet stream, which spans more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) wide, sits over Jupiter’s equator above the main cloud decks. The discovery of this jet is giving insights into how the layers of Jupiter’s famously turbulent atmosphere interact with each other, and how Webb is uniquely capable of tracking those features.

“This is something that totally surprised us,” said Ricardo Hueso of the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain, lead author on the paper describing the findings. “What we have always seen as blurred hazes in Jupiter’s atmosphere now appear as crisp features that we can track along with the planet’s fast rotation.”

The research team analyzed data from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured in July 2022 . The Early Release Science program – jointly led by Imke de Pater from the University of California, Berkeley and Thierry Fouchet from the Observatory of Paris – was designed to take images of Jupiter 10 hours apart, or one Jupiter day, in four different filters, each uniquely able to detect changes in small features at different altitudes of Jupiter’s atmosphere.

“Even though various ground-based telescopes, spacecraft like NASA’s Juno and Cassini, and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have observed the Jovian system’s changing weather patterns, Webb has already provided new findings on Jupiter’s rings, satellites, and its atmosphere,” de Pater noted.

While Jupiter is different from Earth in many ways – Jupiter is a gas giant, Earth is a rocky, temperate world – both planets have layered atmospheres. Infrared, visible, radio, and ultraviolet light wavelengths observed by these other missions detect the lower, deeper layers of the planet’s atmosphere – where gigantic storms and ammonia ice clouds reside.

On the other hand, Webb’s look farther into the near-infrared than before is sensitive to the higher-altitude layers of the atmosphere, around 15-30 miles (25-50 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops. In near-infrared imaging, high-altitude hazes typically appear blurry, with enhanced brightness over the equatorial region. With Webb, finer details are resolved within the bright hazy band.

The newly discovered jet stream travels at about 320 miles per hour (515 kilometers per hour), twice the sustained winds of a Category 5 hurricane here on Earth. It is located around 25 miles (40 kilometers) above the clouds, in Jupiter’s lower stratosphere .

By comparing the winds observed by Webb at high altitudes, to the winds observed at deeper layers from Hubble, the team could measure how fast the winds change with altitude and generate wind shears.

While Webb’s exquisite resolution and wavelength coverage allowed for the detection of small cloud features used to track the jet , the complementary observations from Hubble taken one day after the Webb observations were also crucial to determine the base state of Jupiter’s equatorial atmosphere and observe the development of convective storms in Jupiter’s equator not connected to the jet.  

“We knew the different wavelengths of Webb and Hubble would reveal the three-dimensional structure of storm clouds, but we were also able to use the timing of the data to see how rapidly storms develop,” added team member Michael Wong of the University of California, Berkeley, who led the associated Hubble observations .

The researchers are looking forward to additional observations of Jupiter with Webb to determine if the jet’s speed and altitude change over time.

“Jupiter has a complicated but repeatable pattern of winds and temperatures in its equatorial stratosphere, high above the winds in the clouds and hazes measured at these wavelengths,” explained team member Leigh Fletcher of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. “If the strength of this new jet is connected to this oscillating stratospheric pattern, we might expect the jet to vary considerably over the next 2 to 4 years – it’ll be really exciting to test this theory in the years to come.”

“It’s amazing to me that, after years of tracking Jupiter’s clouds and winds from numerous observatories, we still have more to learn about Jupiter, and features like this jet can remain hidden from view until these new NIRCam images were taken in 2022,” continued Fletcher.

The researchers’ results were recently published in Nature Astronomy.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

Laura Betz – [email protected] NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Hannah Braun – [email protected] , Christine Pulliam – [email protected] Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

Download full resolution images for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Research results published in Nature Astronomy.

NASA’s Jupiter Website – https://science.nasa.gov/jupiter/

NASA’s Solar System Website – https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/

More Webb News – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/latestnews/

More Webb Images – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/multimedia/images/

Webb Mission Page – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/

Esta Artículo en español

Ciencia de la NASA

NASA en español 

Space Place para niños

Related Topics

Our Solar System

Overview Our planetary system is located in an outer spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. We call it the…

The solar system has eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. There are five officially recognized…

Related Terms

• James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
• Goddard Space Flight Center

The Nine Planets

Jupiter Facts for Kids

Jupiter is a massive planet, twice the size of all other planets combined and has a centuries-old storm that is bigger than earth..

The planet Jupiter is named after the supreme Roman god. To the ancient Greeks, he was known as Zeus, ruler of the Greek gods, and Mount Olympus.

Key Facts & Summary

• Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the biggest planet of our Solar System. Some consider it a failed star since it is made out of swirling gases and liquids such as 90% hydrogen, and 10% helium – very similar to the Sun.
• Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the sky and one of the five visible planets ( Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn ).
• The envelope of gases – atmosphere – surrounding Jupiter is the largest planetary atmosphere in the Solar System. It makes up almost the entire planet. Basically, it doesn’t have a true surface with its atmosphere reaching altitudes of 5.000 km / 1.864 mi.
• Through the observations of Jupiter, the discovery of the four Galilean moons ended the belief that everything revolved around the Earth.
• Jupiter has a total of 79 confirmed moons. It is second only to Saturn when it comes to the total amount of satellites.
• Jupiter also has 3 ring systems but much smaller than Saturn’s.
• Though they can be seen only through ultraviolet, Jupiter’s auroras are the brightest in the Solar System.
• Jupiter has a mean radius of 69.911 kilometers / 43.440 miles, a diameter at the equator of around 142.984 km / 88.846 mi, and a diameter at the poles of 133.708 km / 83.082 mi.
• Jupiter’s mass is almost twice of all the Solar System’s planets combined. It is 318 times more massive than Earth.
• Jupiter is on average about 5.2 AU away from the Sun. One AU is equivalent to 150 million km / 93 million mi.
• Jupiter experiences 200 times more asteroid and comet impacts than Earth.
• In a way, Jupiter is the Solar System’s vacuum cleaner, because of its powerful gravity which attracts many of the comets and asteroids to hit it rather than other planets.

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet of the Solar System . It is more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined, being 318 times bigger than Earth .

The planet is very similar to a star, but it never got big enough to start burning. Jupiter has rings surrounding it, but they are very faint and hard to see.

It is the planet with the second-most moons, 79, after Saturn, who has 82. The closest planets to Jupiter are Mars and Saturn . The planet can be seen with the naked eye, you don’t need a telescope or a pair of binoculars to see it.

Surface and Structure

Jupiter is a gas giant, just like Saturn. It is made mostly out of hydrogen and helium. It doesn’t have a true surface, but it may have a solid core about the size of Earth at its center.

Jupiter is covered in swirling cloud stripes and has enormous storms like the Great Red Spot, which has been going on for hundreds of years.

The atmosphere is very thick, and it is made out of ammonia, sulfur, methane, and water vapor. Jupiter’s atmosphere is the largest planetary atmosphere in the Solar System. It makes up almost the entire planet.

Time on Jupiter

A day on Jupiter goes by very fast. It only lasts for about 10 hours. However, since it is farther away from the Sun than Earth, one year on Jupiter – the time it takes for it to circle the Sun once – is equal to 11.8 Earth years.

• If Jupiter would be 75 times more massive than it currently is, it would become a star just like our Sun.
• If you could somehow stand on Jupiter, and you would weigh 100 pounds on Earth, on Jupiter you would weigh 240 pounds due to the gravitational force. So basically, regardless of your weight, on Jupiter you would weigh 2.5 times more than on Earth.
• We don’t know how, but the ancient Babylonians wrote about Jupiter around 1.300 years ago. It may be the earliest recordings of the planet.
• Because Jupiter spins very fast, probably the fastest out of all the planets, it is flattened a bit so it bulges at its equator.
• The same speed gives power to Jupiter’s strong magnetic field which is around 20 times stronger than Earth’s. It is the most powerful magnetic field in the Solar System. 
• Jupiter is surrounded by dangerous waves of radiation, and this makes it hard for spacecraft to approach it.
• The red spot on Jupiter was first seen in 1665 by an Italian astronomer named Giovanni Cassini.
• If you could go down on Jupiter, the thin, cold atmosphere would become thicker and hotter until it turns into a thick, dark fog. The pressure further down is so great that the gases become liquid.

Size and Comparison

Jupiter has a mean radius of 69.911 kilometers / 43.440 miles, a diameter at the equator of around 142.984 km / 88.846 mi, and a diameter at the poles of 133.708 km / 83.082 mi. It is the biggest planet in the Solar System.

Compared to Earth, it has more than 11 times its diameter. Around 1.300 Earth’s would fit inside Jupiter’s volume. In comparison to Mercury, the smallest planet in the Solar System, it is more than 29 times its diameter. More than 24.462 Mercury’s would fit inside Jupiter’s volume.

Venus is similar to Earth in size, it has less than 11.8 times the diameter of Jupiter. Mars, on the other hand, has less than 20 times the diameter of Jupiter. Jupiter has around 2.8 times the diameter of Neptune and Uranus. In comparison to Saturn, it has 1.2 times its diameter.

More Mass, Less Size?

Though Jupiter is 2.5 times more massive than all the planets of the Solar System combine, scientists predict that if it would get more mass, the giant would actually get smaller.

More mass will make the planet more dense, and this would cause it to start pulling it in on itself. 

Is Jupiter a failed star?

Though some consider Jupiter a failed star, it doesn’t have enough mass to trigger a fusion reaction in its core. That is the mechanism of how stars generate energy, by fusing hydrogen under extreme heat and pressure to create helium, releasing light and heat in the process.

This means that Jupiter has no way of becoming a star unless it would gain around 75 times more mass than it currently has.

Jupiter generates more heat than it receives from the Sun

Since it is the most massive planet in the Solar System, it is the closest to being a star, at least in terms of mass. Because of this mass, Jupiter generates high amounts of heat as it shrinks under gravity. It is unknown when Jupiter will stop shrinking.

Other Characteristics

The winds on Jupiter are very powerful. They are trapped in the planet’s wide bands of latitude. Each of these bands has a slightly different chemical make-up and temperature.

Because of this, some of the bands have different colors. The light-colored bands are called “zones.” The dark-colored bands are called “belts”.

These clouds are different in color, depending on the altitude. Blue clouds are the lowest, followed by brown and white clouds. Red clouds are the highest.

The Great Red Spot is big enough to hold two Earths. It is a high-pressure region where clouds are much higher and colder than in the surrounding areas. Jupiter also has other spots, but they are far smaller. 

Jupiter is very bright in the night sky, second only to Venus . The four most important moons of Jupiter, called the Galilean moons, are also quite visible, but you would need a pair of binoculars to see them.

One of the most important moons of Jupiter is Europa. This moon may have water on it, and it is currently closely studied. Another interesting moon of Jupiter is Io, which is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System.

Scientists believe that Jupiter was twice its current size when it was formed. The giant planet is constantly bombarded with asteroids and comets, almost 200 times more than Earth.

Jupiter Notes

• Jupiter is the largest planet of the Solar System. It is the fifth planet from the Sun.
• Jupiter is a gas giant, and it lacks a true surface. It is made up of about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium.
• Jupiter has a faint ring system, and it is second in terms of the number of satellites only to Saturn. It has 79 moons, four of them, the Galilean moons, helped shape our view of the Universe.
• Jupiter’s moon Europa has many chances of developing life.
• Jupiter shrinks 2 centimeters every year because it radiates too much heat.

[2.] Wikipedia

Image sources:

• https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/system/feature_items/images/11_stsci-h-p1936a_800.jpg
• https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21772.jpg
• https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/rCdTVsPesASiv3JeVyhHsa-1200-80.jpg
• https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia22946-16.jpg
• https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/images/627807main_PIA14410_full.jpg

Science | May 22, 2024

The Seven Most Amazing Discoveries We’ve Made by Exploring Jupiter

The giant planet is a world of extremes

Among the planets in our solar system, Jupiter is the eldest and largest, and it often appears as the second brightest in the night sky after Venus. Scientists have long tracked this streaked gas giant ever since they started constructing simple telescopes. In 1610, Galileo Galilei observed Jupiter through his telescope and discovered four large moons. The finding prompted him to suggest the then-heretical notion that Earth, like these four Galilean satellites, may be encircling some larger astronomical body instead of being surrounded by minions at the center of the universe.

Jupiter’s extreme heft is its most characteristic feature. Owing to its gravitational prowess, Jupiter plays a “big brother” role in the solar system—it has had a hand in many historical events. Four billion years ago, the behemoth conspired with Saturn to combine their gravitational might to hurl comets and asteroids across the solar system. Such an event may have even brought about a cataclysmic period known as the Late Heavy Bombardment—when planetesimals peppered the inner solar system and potentially forged many of the craters that pockmark the surface of the moon today.

In the last 50 years, spacefaring missions and the development of more powerful telescopes have allowed scientists to peer past Jupiter’s clouds and dissect the planet with unprecedented clarity. Scientists have found that Jupiter’s environment is extremely hostile. Long-lasting storms jet around the planet and paint the surface in multicolor bands. Lethal levels of radiation threaten to fry any interloper. Like their mother planet, the Galilean moons are also far from being placid worlds.

With its gorgeous swirling overcoat and nature of extremes, Jupiter has long captured the public imagination and continues to inspire scientific study. Recent discoveries have only heightened Jupiter’s mystique, enticing researchers to probe this far-flung realm. Here are some of the most enthralling findings scientists have made about Jupiter and its moons in the last five decades.

Jupiter has a strange core

As a gas giant, Jupiter isn’t terra firma—all the way down to its fuzzy core. At its center is a diluted mixture of heavy-element solids and gases squeezed beyond recognition by gravity. Imagine biting into day-old boba that’s still soft on the outside but has hardened somewhat in the middle—Jupiter has a similar consistency, one of a fluffy outer layer that transitions into a dense core in one continuum.

Jupiter’s strange interior was discovered by the Juno mission in 2017 through gravity field measurements , a technique that maps the subtle variations in the gravitational tug on a spacecraft as it skims all across the planet. The gravity data looked nothing like that for planets with a sharp solid-fluid boundary, prompting scientists to propose that Jupiter has a fuzzy core. “We still don't fully understand exactly what is going on,” says Heidi Becker, a NASA planetary scientist and one of Juno’s co-investigative leads.

Understanding the core provides clues into Jupiter’s formation. Most proto-planets start accreting solids first until they become massive enough to switch to recruiting gases. To explain the Jupiter data, scientists theorize that perhaps Jupiter never stopped accreting solids as it grew. As a result, the planet may be an uneven mixture of solids and gases from center to surface. Another speculation is that a giant impactor, one that formidably matched Jupiter in size and heft, fell into Jupiter and stirred up the planet’s insides, blurring out the core-mantle boundary.

A powerful magnetosphere creates energetic streams

Earth’s magnetic field arises from swirling molten iron in its core that generates a dynamo. On Jupiter, a curious form of matter known as metallic hydrogen powers the magnetic field instead.

Jupiter’s heft translates to immense pressures deep inside its heart, which fashions exotic matter found nowhere else in the solar system. Hydrogen, the lightest element on the periodic table and typically a gas, is pinched inside the planet until its electrons detach from the atoms and swarm freely. This sea of mobile electrons creates the dynamo that gives Jupiter its powerful magnetic field. Jupiter’s sphere of magnetic influence is the largest object in the solar system, several times wid er than the sun . This magnetosphere is mammoth enough to protect the planet from solar winds, sweeping the sun-flung particles as far as Saturn’s orbit .

Jupiter may be untouchable by solar winds, but the Jovian system—Jupiter and its moons— generates its own energetic particles. They are trapped and accelerated by the very magnetic field that protects the planet from external ionic bombardment.

“The presence of the magnetic field has pros and cons,” says Cheng Li, a planetary scientist at the University of Michigan and a Juno co-investigator.

The charged particles come from Jupiter’s most volatile moon, Io, whose volcanic spew becomes electrified as the magnetic field rips electrons from its molecules. The stray electrons zip around Jupiter near the speed of light and release radio waves. These radio emissions are a nuisance from a scientific perspective, because they drown out radar signals from scientists aiming to probe the planet’s interior from Earth. The electron shield also creates a radiation belt that pummels visiting spacecrafts. With this hazard in mind, scientists built Juno “like an armored tank,” Becker says—all its sensitive electronics sit inside an electron-shielding titanium vault that weighs almost 400 pounds .

Nevertheless, Jupiter’s strong-arm magnetosphere creates spectacular auroras when the electrons it directs invariably smash into other atoms in the atmosphere to release bursts of light. Given that the magnetic field is large enough to envelop the moons, it also ferries ejecta from Io elsewhere. Scientists have detected contaminants all the way on Europa, another Jovian moon that’s hundreds of thousands of miles from Io.

Jupiter runs hot

Jupiter isn’t done cooling off from its primordial days. Heat still emanates from the planet billions of years after it formed. Scientists think that this heat helps drive the intense storms that hog Jupiter’s atmosphere.

The Voyager mission measured how much warmth Jupiter was giving off when it skimmed past the gas giant in 1979 . Scientists realized then that Jupiter was shedding more heat than models had predicted: Some parts of the planet were burning at nearly 800 degrees Fahrenheit above what researchers had expected.

The mystery of the clandestine heat was resolved four decades later when scientists at the Keck Observatory mapped Jupiter’s temperatures . The planet ran coldest near the equator and hottest near the magnetic poles, where the auroras flared most intensely. This demonstrated that the auroras present an additional heat source. Plasma from Io collides with Jupiter’s atmosphere to create spectacular auroras, and it rubs against Jupiter’s fast-moving winds to generate enough friction that it raises temperatures globally.

Jupiter boasts eclectic moons

Jupiter does more than help shuffle chemicals between its moons. The planet can also heat its moons from a distance through its gravitational field.

This long-range heating is apparent among its four Galilean moons. Jupiter’s gravitational influence has remade these moons into the tantalizing worlds they are today. “They’re not just these static rocks that are sitting around in space gradually getting bombarded,” says Michael H. Wong, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, who’s also involved in the Juno mission.

The Galilean moons stay geologically active through a mechanism known as tidal heating. As the moons dance near and away from Jupiter along their elliptical orbits, a gravitational tug-of-war between the moons and Jupiter generates levels of friction large enough to cook the satellites. “It’s almost like they’re being drawn and quartered,” Becker says.

As a result, the Galilean moons look nothing like dead worlds such as Earth’s own moon. Of the quartet, Io is the closest, so it experiences the full wrath of Jupiter’s gravity. A speck compared to its mother planet, Io is the most volcanically active locale in all of the solar system. Its icy sibling, Europa, may look nothing like Io, but it hides a vast ocean of liquid water under a frozen shell. Europa is a prime target for exploring planetary habitability, thanks to Jupiter’s tidal heating processes that keep Europa balmy enough to potentially harbor life.

Jupiter’s clouds and atmosphere are nothing like Earth’s

Although Jupiter’s atmosphere is 90 percent hydrogen , the air is rich with other compounds that give the planet its iconic hues of white and orange. At the surface, acetylene , hydrogen sulfides and phosphine molecules brush the planet into varied swirls that ring the planet.

In 1995, the Galileo Probe descended into Jupiter’s gaseous body and took a whiff. It found that Jupiter had three kinds of clouds: those made up of ammonia, ammonium hydrosulfide and water ice . As such, different kinds of rain fall through Jupiter’s skies, depending on the altitude.

The probe also detected enriched levels of heavy gases —more than scientists had initially thought Jupiter should harbor, given its present size and position. This chemical clue points at a peripatetic past: Jupiter may have formed farther away from the sun, where it was cold enough to attract ice and frozen gases. Then, scientists theorize, it gradually drifted closer to the sun until it was held back by Saturn’s gravity. “Saturn helped Jupiter move outward,” Li says, “otherwise Jupiter probably would have been engulfed by the sun.”

Exotic weather patterns abound

Jupiter brews up some impressive storms. One of the most recognizable features is the Great Red Storm, a vortex clocking 400 miles per hour and extending as deep as 300 miles . Although the Great Red Storm has persisted for over two centuries, it is shrinking—the eye of the storm used to be as large as three Earths linked together; now, its width can barely fit one , though this size still makes it the largest living tempest in the solar system.

Jupiter’s upper atmosphere also hosts shallow bursts of lightning. That discovery came in 2020 when Juno pointed its camera at the dark side of the planet and caught weak flashes of light. On Earth, lightning occurs when colliding ice particles and water droplets inside clouds build up a separation of positive and negative charges. Scientists initially thought such lightning on Jupiter was impossible, as they suspected that the temperatures at these heights were too frigid to host liquid water. But Jupiter has managed to whip up liquid water high up in its atmosphere, thanks to the presence of ammonia gas that acts as an antifreeze.

Storms also hurl ice particles up from the deep, and the ice encounters ammonia and forms what scientists think are ammonia-water “ mushballs ,” a kind of hailstone containing both solid ice and liquid water. Though scientists haven’t directly observed these mushballs, they can speculate—“in my imagination, it would be like if you got a Slurpee and formed it into a ball,” Wong says. When the clouds rain out, the mushballs capture other ammonia gases on the way down, which explains the pockets of missing ammonia throughout the atmosphere that Juno has also observed.

Yes, Jupiter has a ring

“A lot of people don’t even realize it has one,” Becker says. Too puny to be observed with a backyard telescope, Jupiter’s dusty wreath remained undetected for a long time. Discovered only in 1979 during the Voyager 1 flyby, the ring has since been viewed with more powerful ground telescopes and other visiting spacecraft.

Like any ring encircling other planets in the solar system, Jupiter’s is a glorified debris field. Detritus from crash-landed meteorites congregate around Jupiter. This loose mélange of ice, dust and rock spans 32,000 to 130,000 miles in width from the planetary surface.

When other celestial objects pass through the ring, they can leave behind tracks in the dust stream. One of the most famous of wakes came from the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashing into Jupiter in 1994. Years later, the Galileo and New Horizons spacecraft found ripples in Jupiter’s ring that were kicked up by shards from the comet, the celestial equivalent of footsteps in freshly fallen snow.

Get the latest Science stories in your inbox.

Shi En Kim | | READ MORE

Shi En Kim is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance science journalist. Her work has appeared in  National Geographic ,  Scientific American , the  Atlantic ,  Popular Science  and others. In 2021, she interned at  Smithsonian  magazine as an AAAS Mass Media Fellow.

Got any suggestions?

We want to hear from you! Send us a message and help improve Slidesgo

Top searches

Trending searches

15 templates

49 templates

11 templates

39 templates

150 templates

ottoman empire

21 templates

Planet Jupiter Minitheme

It seems that you like this template, planet jupiter minitheme presentation, premium google slides theme, powerpoint template, and canva presentation template.

Tell us that you use Slidesgo without telling us you use Slidesgo. "Jupiter is a gas giant and the biggest planet in the Solar System." Outstanding! "It's the fourth-brightest object in the night sky." Excellent! "It was named after the Roman god of the skies and lightning." Superb! This minitheme dedicated to planet Jupiter is tailor-made for you. Talk about this enormous planet and make the most of the design of these slides: lots of illustrations included!

Features of this template

• 100% editable and easy to modify
• 20 different slides to impress your audience
• Contains easy-to-edit graphics such as graphs, maps, tables, timelines and mockups
• Includes 500+ icons and Flaticon’s extension for customizing your slides
• Designed to be used in Google Slides, Canva, and Microsoft PowerPoint
• 16:9 widescreen format suitable for all types of screens
• Includes information about fonts, colors, and credits of the resources used

What are the benefits of having a Premium account?

What Premium plans do you have?

What can I do to have unlimited downloads?

Don’t want to attribute Slidesgo?

Gain access to over 25100 templates & presentations with premium from 1.67€/month.

Are you already Premium? Log in

Related posts on our blog

How to Add, Duplicate, Move, Delete or Hide Slides in Google Slides

How to Change Layouts in PowerPoint

How to Change the Slide Size in Google Slides

Related presentations.

Premium template

Unlock this template and gain unlimited access

More From Forbes

In photos: nasa’s juno sends back spectacular images of jupiter.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

Jupiter, processed by Jackie Branc using images taken by the Juno spacecraft on May 12, 2024.

NASA’s solar-powered spacecraft Juno has sent back another tranche of images from 560 million miles (900 million kilometers) away.

The bus-sized spacecraft, which has been in Jupiter's orbit since 2016, captured more wonderful images of the giant planet during a close pass of its polar regions.

It comes just in time because Jupiter will be in what astronomers call superior conjunction on May 18 when it passes behind the sun as seen from Earth.

Juno orbits Jupiter every 34 days but along a hugely elliptical path, so it only gets close to Jupiter for a few hours each month. That short period—called a perijove —occurred last Sunday, Juno’s 61st. During a perijove, Juno dips close to the cloud tops of Jupiter.

A view of Jupiter’s North Temperate Belt, processed by Kevin M. Gill using four images taken by the ... [+] Juno spacecraft on May 12, 2024.

Juno’s camera is activated during each perijove. A two-megapixel camera only ever intended for outreach and not for science, JunoCam has, in recent months, been activated early to photograph some of Jupiter’s moons prior to its perijove with the giant planet.

This Is Your Last Chance To Shop These 114 Best Memorial Day Sales

Get up to 50% off during the hoka memorial day sale, wayfair memorial day sale the 22 best deals to shop while you still can.

Jupiter, processed by Thomas Thomopoulos using images taken by the Juno spacecraft on May 12, 2024.

Last month, it captured Europa, an ice-covered moon thought to contain a subterranean ocean. In March, a paper published in Nature Astronomy used Juno’s Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE) instrument to measure the amount of oxygen produced by Europa. It found that the tiny moon generates 1,000 tons of oxygen every 24 hours.

Planetary scientists think that if some of the oxygen produced on Europa finds its way into the moon’s ocean, it could be a possible source of metabolic energy, which would allow lifeforms to exist. Europa is the fourth largest of Jupiter’s 95 known moons .

That storm is 6,000km by 4,200km in size.

“Our ability to fly close to the Galilean satellites during our extended mission allowed us to start tackling a breadth of science, including some unique opportunities to contribute to the investigation of Europa’s habitability,” said Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “And we’re not done yet. More moon flybys and the first exploration of Jupiter’s close ring and polar atmosphere are yet to come.”

Juno has also recently been imaging Jupiter’s innermost moo, Io. This world is, the most volcanic in the solar system, with eruptions orders of magnitude bigger than anything similar on Earth.

Jupiter, processed by Kevin M. Gill using images taken by the Juno spacecraft on May 12, 2024.

Data from Juno’s extremely close flybys of Io in December 2023 and February 2024, both within about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of the surface, was the first-ever in Io’s northern latitudes. It was transformed into an animation featuring a mountain and Loki Patera, a lake of cooling lava on Io.

The next two spacecraft due at Jupiter—NASA’s Europa Clipper in April 2030 and ESA’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) in 2031—will focus on Europa, Callisto and Ganymede.

The $1.1 billion solar-powered spacecraft was launched on August 5, 2011, and began to orbit Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Juno carries 11 science instruments designed to study the Jovian system.

Juno’s 62nd perijove will occur on June 14, and its mission will be completed on September 15, 2025, when Juno will perform a “death dive” into the gas giant during its 76th perijove.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

Join The Conversation

One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. 

Forbes Community Guidelines

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's  Terms of Service.   We've summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:

• False or intentionally out-of-context or misleading information
• Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kind
• Attacks on the identity of other commenters or the article's author
• Content that otherwise violates our site's  terms.

User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:

• Continuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejected
• Racist, sexist, homophobic or other discriminatory comments
• Attempts or tactics that put the site security at risk
• Actions that otherwise violate our site's  terms.

So, how can you be a power user?

• Stay on topic and share your insights
• Feel free to be clear and thoughtful to get your point across
• ‘Like’ or ‘Dislike’ to show your point of view.
• Protect your community.
• Use the report tool to alert us when someone breaks the rules.

Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site's  Terms of Service.

• Preferences

Jupiter - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Jupiter is Hot Inside. Jupiter Has a Very Thin Ring. The Moons of Jupiter: Callisto Ganymede ... This is what everyone expected Jupiter's moons to look like. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

• For the first time ever, in 1994 we witnessed the impact of a comet with a planet.

PowerShow.com is a leading presentation sharing website. It has millions of presentations already uploaded and available with 1,000s more being uploaded by its users every day. Whatever your area of interest, here you’ll be able to find and view presentations you’ll love and possibly download. And, best of all, it is completely free and easy to use.

You might even have a presentation you’d like to share with others. If so, just upload it to PowerShow.com. We’ll convert it to an HTML5 slideshow that includes all the media types you’ve already added: audio, video, music, pictures, animations and transition effects. Then you can share it with your target audience as well as PowerShow.com’s millions of monthly visitors. And, again, it’s all free.

About the Developers

PowerShow.com is brought to you by  CrystalGraphics , the award-winning developer and market-leading publisher of rich-media enhancement products for presentations. Our product offerings include millions of PowerPoint templates, diagrams, animated 3D characters and more.

Jupiter Poster – Version A

Version A of the Jupiter installment of our solar system poster series.

The posters are best printed on 11x17 paper. Several download options are available in the column on the right.

• There one version of this poster: Version A .
• Download full set

About the image: This true color mosaic of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by the narrow angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft in December 2000. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

On the Back

Jupiter is the fifth planet from our Sun and is, by far, the largest planet in the solar system – more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined.

Jupiter's stripes and swirls are actually cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water, floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot is a giant storm bigger than Earth that has raged for hundreds of years.

Jupiter is named for the king of the ancient Roman gods.

Explore Jupiter in depth at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/jupiter

No plans this Memorial Day? Check out these weekend events

V eterans, volunteers and other community members up and down the coast are planning tributes to honor service members on Memorial Day who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Here is a list of events taking place around the Treasure Coast and Palm Beaches. All events are open and free to the public.

Flags for our Fallen Veterans Ceremony

• When: Sunday, May 26 at 8 a.m.
• Where: South Florida National Cemetery, 6501 State Road 7. 

Lake Worth is inviting the public to attend a Memorial Day ceremony to honor fallen warriors by planting flags near their headstones at the South Florida National Cemetery. Attendees will meet across the street at the Pet Supermarket parking lot and carpooling over. Organizers say to use Section 39 when parking. 

Remember the Fallen at the Town's Memorial Day Ceremony

• When: Monday, May 27 at 9:00 am
• Where: Jupiter Veterans Memorial 210 Military Trail.

The Town of Jupiter is honoring the nation's service members who lost their lives in the line of duty with ceremony Veterans Memorial located outside of Town Hall. During the ceremony, the town will unveil its second installation of Veterans Memorial Bricks, part of a program designed to allow people to honor their family members or loved ones who gave the ultimate sacrifice. 

Palm Beach Gardens

The City of Palm Beach Gardens Memorial Day Ceremony

• When: Monday, May 27 at 9:00 a.m.
• Where: Veterans Plaza Amphitheater, 10500 North Military Trail

The City of Palm Beach Gardens will host a variety of ceremonies to honor service members, including the Presentation of Colors, a wreath-laying ceremony and a performance by the Palm Beach Gardens High School band playing patriotic classics. 

Event planners ask the public to leave pets at home. If weather affects the event, the ceremony will take place in the Council Chambers, 10500 North Military Trail.

Memorial Day Parade and Ceremony

• When: Monday, May 27 8:15 a.m. 
• Where: Wellington’s Village Hall, located at 12300 Forest Hill Boulevard.

 Wellington and the American Legion Post 390 are putting on a parade to honor service members, and they're inviting all veterans to walk. The parade starts at  Wellington’s Village Hall and proceeds down to Wellington’s Veterans Memorial, located on the corner of Forest Hill Boulevard and South Shore Boulevard. The parade will be followed by a Memorial Day ceremony at the Memorial. 

Veterans who want to be recognized at the post-parade ceremony are encouraged to sign up at the Wellington tent on the morning of the event. To participate in the event or walk in the parade, contact Michelle Garvey, the Assistant Director of Community Events, at (561) 791-4082.

Boynton Beach 

Memorial Day Ceremony at Memorial Park

• When: Sunday, May 26 from 2 to 3 p.m.
• Where: Memorial Park, 1611 S. Seacrest Blvd.

The Boynton Beach Veterans Task Force is putting on a Memorial Day Ceremony at Memorial Park this Sunday. The event will take place near the mausoleum under the overhang area. Attendees will be shielded from the sun with tents, and chairs will be provided. 

Royal Palm Beach 

Royal Palm Beach Memorial Day Ceremony

• When: Monday, May 27 at 9:30 a.m. 
• Where: Veterans Park Amphitheatre 1036 Royal Palm Beach Boulevard 

South Palm Beach 

Memorial Day - Remember and Honor

• When: Monday, May 27 at 11 a.m.
• Where: Town Council Chambers at 3577 South Ocean Blvd. 

The Town of South Palm Beach hosting a Memorial Day ceremony at the Town Council Chambers, offering light refreshments. Attendees to the event are encouraged to bring non-perishable food for the Palm Beach County Food Bank. 

Memorial Day Ceremony

• Where: Kelsey Park at 601 U.S. Highway 1. 

Memorial Day Ceremony and Concert 

• When: Ceremony: Monday, May 27 at 9 a.m.; Concert: 7 to 9 p.m.
• Where: Ceremony: Boca Raton Cemetery, 451 SW Fourth Ave; Concert: Mizner Park Amphitheater, 590 Plaza Real.

The public is invited to listen to live music and featured speakers at a Memorial Day ceremony and concert this weekend. Multiple speakers, including Bob Slone, veteran Air Force sergeant, American Legion Post 277 commander; Jonathan Oakley, retired U.S. Marine, senior director of Mission United; Sally Nemes, Estahakee Chapter NSDAR regent; and Cary Reichbach, U.S. Army veteran, founder of Grey Team.

Then the Veterans of Foreign Wars will present its Memorial Day Program at 9:30 a.m. at Veteran's Memorial Park, where there will be a procession of colors, speakers and a wreath-laying ceremony. 

After the morning events is a concert held at Mizner Park Amphitheatre, where musicians will play patriotic songs and American classics. Organizers encourage attendees to bring a chair or blanket. Chair rentals will be available for $5 and will be free for active military, veterans and Gold Star families. There will be refreshments, but outside alcohol is prohibited. 

Lantana 

Memorial Day Service 

• When: Monday, May 27 at 10 a.m.
• Where: Veterans Memorial Park 2100 SE Veterans Memorial Pkwy, Port St. Lucie.

The United Veterans of Port St Lucie will put on a tribute to fallen service members this weekend at this outdoor event. Seating is limited, so attendees might want to bring their own chairs. 

Fort Pierce

Memorial Day at the Museum

• When: Monday, May 27 at 9 a.m.
• Where: The National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum 3300 N Hwy A1A, Fort Pierce

Fort Pierce is putting on an event at the Navy SEAL Museum as part of its annual Memorial Day ceremony to honor fallen service members. The ceremony will take place outdoors at the Museum’s Memorial Wall.

Sebastian 

Memorial Day Observance 

• Where: Riverview Park at Veterans Memorial at US-1 &, Co Rd 512

Memorial Day Observance

• When :  Monday, May 27 at 9 a.m.
• Where: Veterans Memorial Island Sanctuary in Vero Beach's Riverside Park.

The Veterans Council of Indian River County is putting on a ceremony that offers the community an opportunity to come together and pay tribute.

"Let us pause, not just to remember, but to honor," said Cynthia Ryan, the Executive Director of the Veterans Council ""Memorial Day serves as our collective tribute to the bravery and sacrifice of those who gave everything for our nation's freedom." 

The ceremony will feature full military honors, including the Parade of the Colors. Ample parking is available at Riverside Park, and we recommend bringing a lawn chair to comfortably enjoy the proceedings, according to the city. 

Commander Michael Fortunato, M.D., United States Navy, is this year's keynote speaker. 

Learn more about the programs and services by visiting helplRCvets.org or calling (772) 410-5820.