Jupiter could have become a star
In 1610, Galileo discovered Jupiter and its four largest moons: Europa, Io, Callisto and Ganymede, which are now commonly called the Galilean moons. This was the first observation of a space object orbiting a planet. Previously, observations were carried out only for the Moon orbiting the Earth. Later, thanks to this very observation, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus gave weight to his theory that the Earth is not the center of the Universe. This is how the heliocentric model of the world appeared.
As the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter has a mass twice the mass of all other planets in the solar system. Jupiter's atmosphere is more like that of a star than a planet, and is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Scientists agree that if the reserves of these elements were 80 times more, then Jupiter would turn into a real star. And with four main moons and many (67 in total) smaller satellites, Jupiter itself is almost a miniature copy of its own solar system. This planet is so huge that it would take over 1,300 Earth-sized planets to fill the volume of this gas giant.
Jupiter and its famous Great Red Spot
Jupiter's amazing coloration consists of light and dark belt zones, which, in turn, are caused by constant powerful winds blowing from east to west at a speed of 650 kilometers per hour. Areas with light clouds in the upper atmosphere contain frozen, crystallized ammonia particles. Darker clouds contain various chemical elements. These climatic features are constantly changing and never linger for long intervals.
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In addition to the fact that it rains very often on Jupiter from real diamonds, another famous feature of this gas giant is its huge red spot. This spot is a giant counter-clockwise hurricane. The size of this hurricane is almost three times the Earth's diameter. The wind speed in the center of the hurricane reaches 450 kilometers per hour. The giant red spot constantly changes in size, sometimes increasing and becoming even brighter, then decreasing and becoming dimmer.
Jupiter's amazing magnetic field
Jupiter's magnetic field is nearly 20,000 times stronger than Earth's magnetic field. Jupiter can rightfully be considered the king of the magnetic fields of our planetary system. The planet is surrounded by an incredible field of electrically charged particles, which bombard other planets of the solar system without stopping. At the same time, the level of radiation near Jupiter is up to 1000 times higher than the lethal level for humans. The radiation density is so strong that it can damage even well-protected spacecraft, such as the Galileo probe.
Jupiter's magnetosphere extends from 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 kilometers towards the Sun and up to 1 billion kilometers towards the outer boundaries of the system.
Jupiter is the king of rotation
It only takes Jupiter about 10 hours to complete a revolution on its axis. The day on Jupiter ranges from 9 hours 56 minutes at both poles to 9 hours 50 minutes in the equatorial zone of the gas giant. As a result of this feature, the planet's equatorial zone is 7 percent wider than the polar ones.
As a gas giant, Jupiter does not rotate as a single solid spherical object, such as the Earth. Instead, the planet rotates slightly faster in the equatorial zone and slightly slower in the polar ones. The total rotation speed is about 50,000 kilometers per hour, which is 27 times faster than the Earth's rotation speed.
Jupiter is the largest source of radio waves in the solar system
Another feature of Jupiter that boggles the mind is how powerful radio waves it emits. Jupiter's radio noise even affects shortwave antennas here on Earth. Radio waves not audible to the human ear can acquire very bizarre audio signals due to their terrestrial radio equipment picking up.
Most often, these radio emissions are produced as a result of the instability of the plasma field in the magnetosphere of the gas giant. Often, these noises cause a stir among ufologists, who believe that they have caught signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. Most astrophysicists theorize that the ion gases above Jupiter and its magnetic fields sometimes behave like very powerful radio lasers, producing radiation so dense that at times Jupiter's radio signals overlap the Sun's shortwave radio signals. Scientists believe that this particular power of radio emission is somehow related to the volcanic moon Io.
Jupiter's rings
NASA's aerospace agency was very surprised when the Voyager 1 spacecraft discovered three rings around Jupiter's equator in 1979. These rings are much fainter than those of Saturn and therefore cannot be detected by ground-based equipment.
The main ring is flat and is about 30 kilometers thick and about 6,000 kilometers wide. The inner ring - even more rarefied and often referred to as a halo - is about 20,000 kilometers thick. The halo of this inner ring practically reaches the outer limits of the planet's atmosphere. In this case, both rings are composed of tiny dark particles.
The third ring is even more transparent than the other two and is called the "spider's ring". It consists mainly of dust accumulating around the four moons of Jupiter: Adrastea, Metis, Amalthea and Thebes. The radius of the spiderweb ring reaches about 130,000 kilometers. Planetologists believe that the rings of Jupiter, like Saturn, could have formed as a result of the collisions of numerous space objects, such as asteroids and comets.
Protector of the planets
Since Jupiter is the second largest (first place belongs to the Sun) space objects in the solar system, its gravitational forces most likely participated in the final formation of our system and, probably, even allowed life to appear on our planet.
According to a study published in the journal Nature, Jupiter could one day pull Uranus and Neptune to where they are in the system. In a study published in the journal Science, it is said that Jupiter, with the participation of Saturn, attracted enough material at the dawn of the solar system to form the planets of the inner boundary.
In addition, scientists are confident that the gas giant is a kind of shield against asteroids and comets, reflecting them from other planets. New research shows that Jupiter's gravitational field is affecting many asteroids and changing their orbits. Thanks to this, many of these objects do not fall on planets, including our Earth. These asteroids are called "Trojan asteroids". Three of them, the largest, are known under the names of Hector, Achilles and Agamemnon and are named in honor of the heroes of Homer's Iliad, which describes the events of the Trojan War.
Jupiter's core and tiny Earth's are the same size
Scientists are firmly convinced that the inner core of Jupiter is 10 times smaller than the entire planet Earth. At the same time, there is an assumption that liquid metallic hydrogen accounts for up to 80-90 percent of the core diameter. If we consider that the diameter of the Earth is about 13,000 kilometers, then the diameter of Jupiter's core should be about 1300 kilometers. And this, in turn, puts it on a par with the radius of the inner solid core of the Earth, which is also about 1300 kilometers.
Jupiter's atmosphere. A chemist's dream or nightmare?
Jupiter's atmospheric composition includes 89.2 percent molecular hydrogen and 10.2 percent helium. The remaining percentages account for stocks of ammonia, deuterium, methane, ethane, water, particles of ammonia ice, and particles of ammonium sulfide. In general: an explosive mixture, clearly not suitable for human life.
Since the magnetic field of Jupiter is 20,000 times more powerful than the magnetic field of the Earth, then, most likely, the gas giant has a very dense inner core of unknown composition, covered with a thick outer layer of liquid metallic hydrogen rich in helium. And all this is "wrapped" in an atmosphere, mainly consisting of molecular hydrogen. Well, just a true gas giant.
Calisto is the most distressed satellite in the solar system
Another interesting feature of Jupiter is its moon called Calisto. Calisto is the farthest of the four Galilean satellites. It takes one Earth week to complete a revolution around Jupiter. Since its orbit lies outside the gas giant's radiation belt, Calisto suffers less from tidal forces than other Galilean moons. But since Kilisto is a tidal-blocked satellite, like our Moon, for example, one of its sides is always facing Jupiter.
Calisto has a diameter of 5,000 kilometers, which is roughly the size of the planet Mercury. After Ganymede and Titan, Calisto is the third largest satellite in the solar system (our Moon is fifth in this list, and Io is in fourth). The surface temperature of Calisto is at -139 degrees Celsius.
As one of the four Gililean satellites, Calisto was discovered by the great astronomer Galileo Galilei and actually deprived him of his peaceful life. Calisto's discovery helped strengthen the belief in his heliocentric theory and added fuel to the fire of the astronomer's already blazing conflict with the Catholic Church.
Nikolay Khizhnyak