Jupiter

Space Wiki Advertisement Space Wiki Jupiter Use like a WIP template This page is a work in progress! Jupiter Jupiter.jpg NASA taken Jupiter photo of an eclipse of Ganymede Discovery and Designation Orbital characteristics Aphelion distance: 5.45 AU Perihelion distance: 4.95 AU Satellites: 95 Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest within the solar system. Jupiter and the other gas giants—Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—are sometimes referred to as "Jovian planets." Advertisement Overview Jupiter is usually the fourth brightest object in the sky (after the Sun, the Moon and Venus); however at times Mars appears brighter than Jupiter. Jupiter-Earth-Spot comparison Approximate size comparison of Earth, Jupiter, and the Great Red Spot Jupiter is 2.5 times more massive than all the other planets combined, so massive that its barycenter with the Sun actually lies above the Sun's surface (1.068 solar radii from the Sun's center). It is 318 times more massive than Earth, with a diameter 11 times that of Earth, and a volume 1300 times that of Earth. Quite naturally, Jupiter's gravitational influence has dominated the evolution of the solar system: most planets' orbits lie closer to Jupiter's orbital plane than the Sun's equatorial plane (Mercury is the only planet which is closer to the Sun's equator in orbital tilt), the majority of short-period comets belong to Jupiter's family (a result due to both Jupiter's mass and its relative speed), the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt are mostly due to Jupiter, and Jupiter is even thought to have been possibly responsible for the late heavy bombardment of the inner solar system's history. Some have described the solar system as consisting of the Sun, Jupiter, and assorted debris.[1] Some describe Jupiter as the solar system's vacuum cleaner, due to its immense gravity well. As impressive as Jupiter's mass is, extrasolar planets have been discovered with much greater masses. There is no clear-cut definition