Those who at least once in the evening carefully watched the stars, could not help but notice a bright point, which, with its brilliance and size, stands out from the rest. This is not a distant star, the light of which has been coming to us for millions of years. This is Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. At times of closest approach to the Earth, this celestial body becomes the most noticeable, inferior in brightness to our other space satellites - Venus and the Moon.
The largest of the planets in our solar system became known to people many thousands of years ago. The very name of the planet speaks of its significance for human civilization: out of respect for the size of the heavenly body, the ancient Romans gave it a name in honor of the main ancient deity - Jupiter.
Studying the solar system within the visibility zone, a person immediately noticed the presence of a huge space object in the night sky. Initially, it was believed that one of the brightest objects in the night sky is a wandering star, but over time, a different nature of this celestial body became clear. The high brightness of Jupiter is explained by its colossal size and reaches its maximum values during the approach of the planet to the Earth. The light of the giant planet is -2.94 m of apparent stellar magnitude, losing in brightness only to the brightness of the Moon and Venus.
The first description of Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, dates back to the 8th-7th centuries BC. e. Even the ancient Babylonians observed a bright star in the sky, personifying it with the supreme god Marduk, the patron of Babylon. In later times, the ancient Greeks, and then the Romans, considered Jupiter, along with Venus, one of the main luminaries of the celestial sphere. The Germanic tribes endowed the giant planet with mystical divine power, giving it a name in honor of their main god Donar. Moreover, practically all astrologers, astrologers and soothsayers of antiquity have always taken into account the position of Jupiter, the brightness of its light in their predictions and reports. In more recent times, when the level of technical equipment made it possible to more accurately observe space, it turned out that Jupiter clearly stands out in comparison with other planets in the solar system.
The real size of a small bright dot on our night is of enormous importance. The radius of Jupiter in the equatorial zone is 71490 km. In comparison with the Earth, the diameter of the gas giant is slightly less than 140 thousand km. This is 11 times the diameter of our planet. Such a grandiose size corresponds to the mass. The giant has a mass of 1.8986x1027 kg and weighs 2.47 times more than the total mass of the remaining seven planets, comets and asteroids belonging to the solar system.
The mass of the Earth is 5.97219x1024 kg, which is 315 times less than the mass of Jupiter.
However, the "king of the planets" is not the largest planet in all respects. Despite its size and huge mass, Jupiter is 4.16 times less dense than our planet, 1326 kg/m3 and 5515 kg/m3, respectively. This is due to the fact that our planet is a stone ball with a heavy inner core. Jupiter is a dense accumulation of gases, the density of which is correspondingly less than the density of any solid body.
Another fact is also interesting. With a sufficiently low density, the force of gravity on the surface of the gas giant is 2.4 times higher than the terrestrial parameters. The free fall acceleration on Jupiter will be 24.79 m/s2 (the same value on Earth is 9.8 m/s2). All presented astrophysical parameters of the planet are determined by its composition and structure. Unlike the first four planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, which are terrestrial objects, Jupiter leads the cohort of gas giants. Like Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the largest planet known to us does not have a firmament.
The three-layer model of the planet that exists today gives an idea of what Jupiter really is. Behind the outer gaseous shell, which makes up the atmosphere of the gas giant, is a layer of water ice. This is where the transparent and visible for optical instruments transparent part of the planet ends. It is technically impossible to determine what color the surface of the planet is. Even with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists were able to see only the upper atmosphere of a huge ball of gas.
Further, if you move to the surface, a gloomy and hot world sets in, which consists of ammonia crystals and dense metallic hydrogen. High temperatures (6000-21000 K) and huge pressure exceeding 4000 Gpa dominate here. The only solid element of the planet's structure is the stone core. The presence of a stone core, which, in comparison with the size of the planet, has a small diameter, endows the planet with hydrodynamic equilibrium. It is thanks to him that the laws of conservation of mass and energy operate on Jupiter, keeping the giant in orbit and forcing it to rotate around its own axis. This giant does not have a clearly traceable boundary between the atmosphere and the central, rest of the planet. In the scientific community, it is customary to consider the conditional surface of the planet, where the pressure is 1 bar.
The pressure in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter is low and is only 1 atm. But the realm of cold reigns here, since the temperature does not fall below the mark of - 130 ° C.
Jupiter's atmosphere contains a huge amount of hydrogen, which is slightly diluted with helium and impurities of ammonia and methane. This explains the colorfulness of the clouds densely covering the planet. Scientists believe that such an accumulation of hydrogen occurred during the formation of the solar system. The more solid cosmic matter, under the influence of centrifugal forces, went to the formation of the terrestrial planets, while the lighter free molecules of gases, under the influence of the same physical laws, began to accumulate in clots. These particles of gas have become the building material of which all four giant planets are composed.
The presence on the planet in such an amount of hydrogen, which is the fundamental element of water, suggests the existence of huge amounts of water resources on Jupiter. In practice, it turns out that sudden changes in temperature and the physical conditions on the planet do not allow water molecules to pass from a gaseous and solid state to a liquid.
The fifth planet is also interesting for its astrophysical parameters. Being behind the asteroid belt, Jupiter conditionally divides the solar system into two parts, exerting a strong influence on all space objects that are in its sphere of influence. The closest planet to Jupiter is Mars, which is constantly in the sphere of influence of the magnetic field and the force of gravity of the huge planet. Jupiter's orbit has the shape of a regular ellipse and a slight eccentricity, only 0.0488. In this regard, Jupiter stays at the same distance from our star almost all the time. At perihelion, the planet is located at the center of the solar system at a distance of 740.5 million km, and at aphelion, Jupiter is at a distance of 816.5 million km from the Sun.
Around the Sun, the giant moves rather slowly. Its speed is only 13 km / s, while this parameter of the Earth is almost three times greater (29.78 km / s). Jupiter completes the entire journey around our central star in 12 years. Jupiter's neighbor, the huge Saturn, strongly influences the speed of the planet's movement around its own axis and the speed of the planet's orbit.
Surprising from the point of view of astrophysics and the position of the axis of the planet. The equatorial plane of Jupiter is deviated from the orbital axis by only 3.13 °. On our Earth, the axial deviation from the plane of the orbit is 23.45°. The planet seems to lie on its side. Despite this, the rotation of Jupiter around its own axis occurs at a tremendous speed, which leads to the natural compression of the planet. According to this indicator, the gas giant is the fastest in our star system. Jupiter rotates around its own axis in just under 10 hours. To be more precise, a cosmic day on the surface of the gas giant is 9 hours and 55 minutes, while the Jupiter year lasts 10,475 Earth days. In view of such features of the location of the axis of rotation, there are no seasons on Jupiter.
At the point of closest approach, Jupiter is at a distance of 740 million km from our planet. Modern space probes flying in outer space at a speed of 40,000 kilometers per hour overcome this path in different ways. The first spacecraft in the direction of Jupiter, Pioneer 10, was launched in March 1972. The last of the devices launched towards Jupiter was the automatic probe "Juno". The space probe was launched on August 5, 2011, and only five years later, in the summer of 2020, it reached the orbit of the "king-planet". During the flight, the Juno apparatus traveled a distance of 2.8 billion km.
It is not difficult to guess that such an impressive size of the planet determines the presence of a large retinue. In terms of the number of natural satellites, Jupiter has no equal. There are 69 of them. This set also contains real giants, comparable in size to a full-fledged planet and very small, barely visible with telescopes. Jupiter also has its own rings, similar to those of Saturn. Jupiter's rings are the smallest elements of particles captured by the planet's magnetic field directly from space during the formation of the planet.
Such a large number of satellites is explained by the fact that Jupiter has the strongest magnetic field, which has a huge impact on all neighboring objects. The force of attraction of the gas giant is so great that it allows Jupiter to keep such an extensive family of satellites around it. In addition, the action of the planet's magnetic field is quite enough to attract all wandering space objects. Jupiter performs the function of a space shield in the solar system, catching comets and large asteroids from outer space. The relatively quiet existence of the inner planets is explained precisely by this factor. The magnetosphere of a huge planet is several times more powerful than the Earth's magnetic field.
For the first time, Galileo Galilei met the satellites of the gas giant in 1610. In his telescope, the scientist saw four satellites at once, moving around a huge planet. This fact confirmed the idea of a heliocentric model of the solar system.
The size of these satellites is amazing, which can even compete with some planets in the solar system. For example, the moon Ganymede is larger than Mercury, the smallest planet in the solar system. Slightly inferior to Mercury is another giant satellite - Callisto. A distinctive feature of the Jupiter satellite system is that all the planets orbiting the gas giant have a solid structure.
The sizes of the most famous satellites of Jupiter are as follows:
Some satellites are closer to the parent planet, others are further away. The history of the emergence of such large natural satellites has not yet been disclosed. We are probably dealing with small planets that once orbited Jupiter in the neighborhood. Small satellites are fragments of destroyed comets arriving in the solar system from the Oort cloud. An example is the fall on Jupiter of comet Shoemaker-Levy observed in 1994.
It is the satellites of Jupiter that are objects of interest to scientists, as they are more accessible and similar in structure to the terrestrial planets. The gas giant itself represents a hostile environment for humanity, where it is unimaginable to assume the existence of any known life forms.
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Jupiter the largest planet in our solar system, with four large moons and many smaller moons that form a kind of miniature solar system. Jupiter is about the size of a star, if it were about 80 times more massive, it would become a star, not a planet.
On January 7, 1610, using his primitive telescope, astronomer Galileo Galilei saw four small "stars" near Jupiter. So he discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter, which are called Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. These four satellites are known today as the Galilean satellites.
At present, 50 satellites of Jupiter have been described.
Io is the most volcanically active body in our planet.
Ganymede is the largest planetary moon and the only one in the solar system that has its own magnetic field.
Liquid oceans may lie beneath the surface of Europa, and icy oceans may also lie beneath the surface of Callisto and Ganymede.
When observing this planet, we can only see the surface of its atmosphere. The most visible clouds are made up of ammonia.
The water vapor is below and can sometimes be seen as distinct patches in the clouds.
"Streaks", dark belts and light zones create strong west-east winds in Jupiter's upper atmosphere.
Visible, even through a telescope, is the Great Red Spot, a giant rotating cyclone that has been observed since the 1800s. In recent years, three cyclones have coalesced to form the Little Red Spot, which is half the size of the Great Red Spot.
The composition of Jupiter's atmosphere is similar to that of mostly hydrogen and helium. In the depths of the atmosphere, high pressure, rising temperature, the transformation of hydrogen into a liquid.
At a depth of about one-third to the center of the planet, hydrogen becomes electrically conductive. In this layer, Jupiter's powerful magnetic field generates an electrical current, which is driven by Jupiter's rapid rotation. At the center of the planet, a solid core can be supported by enormous pressure, about the size of the Earth.
Jupiter's strongest magnetic field is almost 20,000 times stronger than Earth's magnetic field. Inside Jupiter's magnetosphere (the region in which the magnetic field lines surround the planet from pole to pole) are streams of charged particles.
The rings of Jupiter and the satellites are located inside the radiation belt of electrons and ions captured by the magnetic field.
In 1979, Voyager 1 discovered three rings around Jupiter. Two rings are composed of small dark particles. The third ring, respectively, consists of 3 more rings, which include microscopic debris and three satellites of Amalthea, Thebe and Adrastea.
In December 1995, the Galileo spacecraft dropped a probe into Jupiter's atmosphere that made the first direct measurements of the planet's atmosphere.
Moons of Jupiter
The planet Jupiter has four large moons, called the Galilean moons, because they were discovered by the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1610.
The German astronomer Simon Marius claimed to have seen moons around the same time, but he did not publish his observations and thus Galileo Galilei is considered the discoverer.
These large satellites are called: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto.
Jupiter's moon - Io
Surface And about covered with gray in various colorful forms.
Io moves in a slightly elliptical orbit, Jupiter's enormous gravity causing "tides" in the moon's solid surface, up to 100m high, producing enough energy for volcanic activity. The volcanoes of Io erupt hot silicate magma.
surfaces Europe consists mainly of water ice.
Europe is believed to have twice as much water as Earth. Astrobiologists put forward the theory that life is possible on the planet in a primitive form - in the form of bacteria, microbes.
Life forms have been found near underground volcanoes on Earth and in other extreme places that could be analogous to what might exist on Europa.
Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system (larger than the planet Mercury), it is also the only moon with a magnetic field.
Surface Callisto very heavily cratered, as evidence of the early history of the solar system. Several small craters, possibly active.
The planets Io, Europa and Ganymede have a layered structure (like the Earth).
Io has a core, a mantle, partially molten rock covered with rocks and sulfur compounds.
Europa and Ganymede have a core; shell around the nucleus; a thick, soft layer of ice, and a thin crust of ice water.
Distance to orbit: 778,340,821 km (5.2028870 AU)
For comparison: 5.203 distances from the Sun to the Earth
Perihelion (closest point of the orbit to the Sun): 740,679,835 km (4.951 AU)
For comparison: 5.035 distances from the Sun to the Earth
Apohelion (the farthest point of the orbit from the Sun): 816,001,807 km (5.455 AU)
For comparison: 5.365 distances from the Sun to the Earth
Sidereal period of the orbit (length of the year): 11.862615 Earth years, 4332.82 Earth days
Orbit circumference: 4887595931 km
For comparison: 5,200 Earth orbit distances
Average orbital speed: 47,002 km/h
For comparison: 0.438 of the speed of movement in the orbit of the Earth
Orbital eccentricity: 0.04838624
For comparison: 2.895 eccentricities of the Earth's orbit
Orbital inclination: 1.304 degrees
Average radius of Jupiter: 69911 km
For comparison: 10.9733 Earth radii
Equator length: 439,263.8 km
For comparison: 10.9733 lengths of the Equator
Volume: 1 431 281 810 739 360 km3
For comparison: 1321.337 volumes of the Earth
Weight: 1,898,130,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg
For comparison: 317.828 Earth masses
Density: 1.326 g/cm3
For comparison: 0.241 Earth density
Area, more: 61,418,738,571 km2
For comparison: 120,414 areas of the Earth
surface gravity: 24.79 m/s2
Second space velocity: 216,720 km/h
For comparison: 5.380 space velocity of the Earth
Sidereal rotation period (day length): 0.41354 Earth days
For comparison: 0.41467 the period of the Earth's rotation
average temperature: -148°C
Planet characteristics:
* diameter at the equator of the planet
** period of rotation around its own axis (in Earth days)
*** orbital period around the Sun (in Earth days)
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun. It is located at a distance of 5.2 astronomical years from the Sun, which is approximately 775 million km. The planets of the solar system are divided by astronomers into two conditional groups: terrestrial planets and gas giants. Jupiter is the largest of the gas giants.
The dimensions of Jupiter exceed the dimensions of the Earth by 318 times, and if it were even larger by about 60 times, it would have every chance of becoming a star due to a spontaneous thermonuclear reaction. The planet's atmosphere is about 85% hydrogen. The remaining 15% is mainly helium with impurities of ammonia and sulfur and phosphorus compounds. Jupiter also contains methane in its atmosphere.
With the help of spectral analysis, it was found that there is no oxygen on the planet, therefore, there is no water - the basis of life. According to another hypothesis, there is still ice in the atmosphere of Jupiter. Perhaps no planet in our system causes so much controversy in the scientific world. Especially many hypotheses are connected with the internal structure of Jupiter. Recent studies of the planet with the help of spacecraft have made it possible to create a model that makes it possible to judge its structure with a high degree of certainty.
The planet is a spheroid, quite strongly compressed from the poles. It has a strong magnetic field that extends millions of kilometers into orbit. The atmosphere is an alternation of layers with different physical properties. Scientists suggest that Jupiter has a solid core 1-1.5 times the diameter of the Earth, but much denser. Its existence has not yet been proven, but it has not been refuted either.
The upper layer of Jupiter's atmosphere consists of a mixture of hydrogen and helium gases and has a thickness of 8 - 20 thousand km. In the next layer, the thickness of which is 50 - 60 thousand km, due to the increase in pressure, the gas mixture passes into a liquid state. In this layer, the temperature can reach 20,000 C. Even lower (at a depth of 60 - 65 thousand km.) Hydrogen passes into a metallic state. This process is accompanied by an increase in temperature to 200,000 C. At the same time, the pressure reaches fantastic values of 5,000,000 atmospheres. Metallic hydrogen is a hypothetical substance characterized by the presence of free electrons and conductive electric current, as is characteristic of metals.
The largest planet in the solar system has 16 natural satellites. Four of them, which Galileo spoke about, have their own unique world. One of them, the satellite of Io, has amazing landscapes of rocky rocks with real volcanoes, on which the Galileo apparatus, which studied the satellites, captured the volcanic eruption. The largest satellite in the solar system, Ganymede, although inferior in diameter to the satellites of Saturn, Titan and Neptune, Triton, has an ice crust that covers the surface of the satellite with a thickness of 100 km. There is an assumption that there is water under a thick layer of ice. Also, the existence of an underground ocean is also hypothesized on the Europa satellite, which also consists of a thick layer of ice, faults are clearly visible in the images, as if from icebergs. And the most ancient inhabitant of the solar system can rightfully be considered a satellite of Jupiter Calisto, there are more craters on its surface than on any other surface of other objects in the solar system, and the surface has not changed much over the past billion years.
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the solar system. Just like Uranus, Neptune and Saturn, Jupiter is a gas giant. Mankind has known about him for a long time. Quite often there are references to Jupiter in religious beliefs and mythology. In modern times, the planet got its name in honor of the ancient Roman god.
Atmospheric phenomena on Jupiter are much larger than those on Earth. The most remarkable formation on the planet is the Great Red Spot, which is a giant storm known to us since the 17th century.
The approximate number of satellites is 67, of which the largest are: Europa, Io, Callisto and Ganymede. G. Galileo was the first to discover them in 1610.
All studies of the planet are carried out using orbital and ground-based telescopes. Since the 70s, 8 NASA vehicles have been sent to Jupiter. During the great confrontations, the planet was visible to the naked eye. Jupiter is one of the brightest objects in the sky after Venus and the Moon. And the satellites and the disk itself are considered the most popular for observers.
Optical range
If we consider an object in the infrared region of the spectrum, we can pay attention to the molecules of He and H2, in the same way the lines of other elements become noticeable. The amount of H speaks about the origin of the planet, and you can learn about the internal evolution thanks to the qualitative and quantitative composition of other elements. But helium and hydrogen molecules do not have a dipole moment, which means that their absorption lines are not noticeable until they are absorbed by impact ionization. Also, these lines appear in the upper layers of the atmosphere, from where they are not able to carry data about deeper layers. Based on this, the most reliable information about the amount of hydrogen and helium on Jupiter can be obtained using the Galileo apparatus.
As for the rest of the elements, their analysis and interpretation is very difficult. It is impossible to say with full certainty about the ongoing processes in the planet's atmosphere. The chemical composition is also a big question. But, according to most astronomers, all processes that can affect the elements are local and limited. From this it follows that they do not carry any special changes in the distribution of substances.
Jupiter radiates 60% more energy than it consumes from the Sun. These processes affect the size of the planet. Jupiter decreases by 2 cm per year. P. Bodenheimer in 1974 put forward the opinion that at the time of formation the planet was 2 times larger than it is now, and the temperature was much higher.
The study of the planet in the gamma range concerns the aurora and the study of the disk. Einstein's space laboratory registered this in 1979. From the Earth, the regions of the aurora in the ultraviolet and X-rays coincide, but this does not apply to Jupiter. Earlier observations established a pulsation of radiation with a frequency of 40 minutes, but later observations showed this dependence much worse.
Astronomers hoped that the X-ray spectrum would make Jupiter's auroral glow similar to that of comets, but the Chandra observations disproved that hope.
According to the XMM-Newton space observatory, it turns out that the disk radiation in the gamma spectrum is a solar X-ray reflection of radiation. Compared to the aurora, there is no periodicity in the intensity of the radiation.
Jupiter is one of the most powerful radio sources in the solar system in the meter-decimeter ranges. Radio emission is sporadic. Such bursts occur in the range from 5 to 43 MHz, with an average width of 1 MHz. The duration of the burst is very short - 0.1-1 sec. The radiation is polarized, and in a circle it can reach 100%.
The radio emission of the planet in the short centimeter-millimeter bands has a purely thermal character, although, unlike the equilibrium temperature, the brightness is much higher. This feature speaks of the flow of heat from the bowels of Jupiter.
Analysis of the trajectories of spacecraft and observations of the movements of natural satellites show the gravitational field of Jupiter. It has strong differences in comparison with spherically symmetrical. As a rule, the gravitational potential is presented in expanded form in terms of Legendre polynomials.
The Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Galileo, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and Cassini spacecraft used several measurements to calculate the gravitational potential: 1) transmitted images to determine their location; 2) Doppler effect; 3) radio interferometry. Some of them had to take into account the gravitational presence of the Great Red Spot in their measurements.
In addition, processing the data, one has to postulate the theory of the motion of Galileo's satellites revolving around the center of the planet. A huge problem for exact calculations is the consideration of acceleration, which has a non-gravitational character.
The equatorial radius of this gas giant is 71.4 thousand km, thereby exceeding the Earth's by 11.2 times. Jupiter is the only planet of its kind that has its center of mass with the Sun located outside the Sun.
The mass of Jupiter exceeds the total weight of all the planets by 2.47 times, the Earth - by 317.8 times. But less than the mass of the Sun by 1000 times. In terms of density, it is very similar to the Luminary and is 4.16 times less than that of our planet. But the force of gravity exceeds the earth's by 2.4 times.
Some studies of theoretical models have shown that if the mass of Jupiter were slightly larger than it actually is, then the planet would begin to shrink. Although small changes would not greatly affect the radius of the planet, provided that the actual mass increased four times, the planetary density increased so much that the process of size reduction due to the action of strong gravity would begin.
Based on this study, Jupiter has the maximum diameter for a planet with a similar history and structure. A further increase in mass led to the duration of the contraction until Jupiter, in the process of star formation, turned into a brown dwarf with a mass exceeding its current mass by 50 times. Astronomers believe that Jupiter is a "failed star", although it is still not clear whether there is a similarity between the formation process of the planet Jupiter and those planets that form binary star systems. Early evidence suggests that Jupiter would have to be 75 times as massive to become a star, but the smallest known red dwarf is only 30% larger in diameter.
Jupiter from Earth has an apparent magnitude of 2.94m, making the planet the third brightest object visible to the naked eye after Venus and the Moon. Farthest away from us, the apparent size of the planet is 1.61m. The minimum distance from Earth to Jupiter is 588 million kilometers, and the maximum is 967 million kilometers.
The confrontation between the planets occurs every 13 months. It should be noted that once every 12 years the great opposition of Jupiter takes place, at the moment the planet is near the perihelion of its own orbit, while the angular size of the object from the Earth is 50 arc seconds.
Jupiter is 778.5 million kilometers from the Sun, while the planet makes a complete revolution around the Sun in 11.8 Earth years. The greatest perturbation to the movement of Jupiter in its own orbit is made by Saturn. There are two types of reimbursement:
Age-old - it has been operating for 70 thousand years. This changes the eccentricity of the planet's orbit.
Resonance - is manifested due to the proximity ratio of 2:5.
A feature of the planet can be called the fact that it has a great proximity between the plane of the orbit and the plane of the planet. On the planet Jupiter there is no change of seasons, due to the fact that the planet's axis of rotation is tilted 3.13 °, for comparison, we can add that the tilt of the Earth's axis is 23.45 °.
The rotation of the planet around its axis is the fastest among all the planets that are part of the solar system. Thus, in the region of the equator, Jupiter makes a revolution around its axis in 9 hours 50 minutes and 30 seconds, and the middle latitudes make this revolution 5 minutes and 10 longer. Due to this rotation, the planet's radius at the equator is 6.5% larger than at mid-latitudes.
A huge amount of research over time suggests that the conditions of Jupiter are not conducive to the origin of life. First of all, this is due to the low content of water in the composition of the planet's atmosphere and the lack of a solid foundation of the planet. It should be noted that in the 70s of the last century, a theory was put forward that in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter, the existence of living organisms that live on the basis of ammonia is possible. In support of this hypothesis, we can say that the atmosphere of the planet, even at shallow depths, has a high temperature and high density, and this contributes to chemical evolutionary processes. This theory was expressed by Carl Sagan, after which, together with E.E. Salpeter, scientists did a series of calculations that led to the conclusion of three alleged life forms on the planet:
But these are only hypotheses that are not supported by scientific facts.
Modern technologies do not yet allow scientists to accurately determine the chemical composition of the planet, but nevertheless, the upper layers of Jupiter's atmosphere have been studied with high accuracy. The study of the atmosphere was made possible only by the descent of a spacecraft called Galileo, which entered the planet's atmosphere in December 1995. This made it possible to accurately say that the atmosphere consists of helium and hydrogen, in addition to these elements, methane, ammonia, water, phosphine and hydrogen sulfide were detected. It is assumed that the deeper sphere of the atmosphere, namely the troposphere, consists of sulfur, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen.
Inert gases such as xenon, argon and krypton are also present, and their concentration is greater than in the Sun. The possibility of the existence of water, dioxide and carbon monoxide is possible in the upper atmosphere of the planet due to collisions with comets, as an example, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 is given.
The reddish color of the planet is due to the presence of compounds of red phosphorus, carbon and sulfur, or even due to organic matter, which was born when exposed to electrical discharges. It should be noted that the color of the atmosphere is not uniform, which indicates that different areas consist of different chemical components.
It is generally accepted that the internal structure of the planet under the clouds consists of a layer of helium and hydrogen with a thickness of 21 thousand kilometers. Here, the substance has a smooth transition in its structure from the gaseous state to the liquid state, after which there is a layer with metallic hydrogen with a capacity of 50 thousand kilometers. The middle part of the planet is occupied by a solid core with a radius of 10 thousand kilometers.
The most recognized model of the structure of Jupiter:
The middle layer is represented by helium (10%) and hydrogen (90%).
The lower part consists of a mixture of helium, hydrogen, ammonium and water. This layer is subdivided into three more:
The creation of this model became possible due to the analysis of observations and studies, taking into account the laws of extrapolation and thermodynamics. It should be noted that this structural structure does not have clear boundaries and transitions between adjacent layers, and this, in turn, indicates that each layer is completely localized, and they can be studied separately.
Temperature indicators of growth throughout the planet are not monotonous. In the atmosphere of Jupiter, as well as in the atmosphere of the Earth, several layers can be distinguished. The upper layers of the atmosphere have the highest temperatures, and moving towards the surface of the planet, these indicators are significantly reduced, but in turn the pressure increases.
The thermosphere of the planet loses most of the heat of the planet itself, and the so-called aurora is also formed here. The upper boundary of the thermosphere is considered to be a pressure mark of 1 nbar. During the study, data were obtained on the temperature in this layer, it reaches an indicator of 1000 K. Scientists have not yet been able to explain why there is such a high temperature here.
Data from the Galileo apparatus showed that the temperature of the upper clouds is -107 ° C at a pressure of 1 atmosphere, and when descending to a depth of 146 kilometers, the temperature rises to +153 ° C and a pressure of 22 atmospheres.
Everyone knows that in the end, the Sun, like another star, will exhaust the entire supply of thermonuclear fuel, while its luminosity will increase by 11% every billion years. Due to this, the familiar habitable zone will significantly shift beyond the orbit of our planet until reaching the surface of Jupiter. This will make it possible to melt all the water on the moons of Jupiter, which will allow the birth of living organisms on the planet to begin. It is known that in 7.5 billion years the Sun as a star will turn into a red giant, due to this, Jupiter will acquire a new status and become a hot Jupiter. In this case, the surface temperature of the planet will be about 1000 K, and this will lead to the glow of the planet. In this case, the satellites will look like lifeless deserts.
Modern data say that Jupiter has 67 natural satellites. According to scientists, it can be concluded that there can be more than a hundred such objects around Jupiter. The satellites of the planet are named mainly after mythical characters who are to some extent connected with Zeus. All satellites are divided into two groups: external and internal. Only 8 satellites belong to the internal ones, among which are the Galilean ones.
The first satellites of Jupiter were discovered in 1610 by the famous scientist Galileo Galilei, these are Europa, Ganymede, Io and Callisto. This discovery was a confirmation of the correctness of Copernicus and his heliocentric system.
The second half of the 20th century was marked by active study of space objects, among which Jupiter deserves special attention. This planet has been explored with powerful ground-based telescopes and radio telescopes, but the biggest advances in this industry have come from the use of the Hubble telescope and the launch of a large number of probes to Jupiter. Research is actively continuing at the moment, since Jupiter still holds many secrets and mysteries.
The fifth and largest planet in the solar system, known since ancient times, is Jupiter. The gas giant was named after the ancient Roman god Jupiter, similar to Zeus the Thunderer among the Greeks. Jupiter is located behind the asteroid belt and is almost entirely composed of gases, mainly hydrogen and helium. The mass of Jupiter is so huge (M = 1.9 ∙ 1027 kg) that it is almost 2.5 times the mass of all the planets of the solar system combined. Around the axis, Jupiter rotates at a speed of 9 hours 55 minutes, and the orbital speed is 13 km / s. The sidereal period (period of rotation in its orbit) is 11.87 years.
In terms of illumination, apart from the Sun, Jupiter is second only to Venus, therefore it is an excellent object for observation. It glows with white light with an albedo of 0.52. In good weather, even with the simplest telescope, you can see not only the planet itself, but also the four largest satellites.
The formation of the Sun and other planets began billions of years ago from a common gas and dust cloud. So Jupiter got 2/3 of the mass of the mass of all the planets in the solar system. But, since the planet is 80 times lighter than the smallest star, thermonuclear reactions never started. However, the planet releases 1.5 times more energy than it receives from the Sun. Its own source of heat is associated primarily with radioactive decays of energy and matter, which is released during the compression process. The thing is that Jupiter is not a solid body, but a gaseous planet. Therefore, the rotation speed at different latitudes is not the same. At the poles, the planet has a strong compression, due to the rapid rotation around the axis. The wind speed exceeds 600 km/h.
Modern science believes that the mass of the core of Jupiter at the moment is 10 Earth masses or 4% of the total mass of the planet, and the size is 1.5 of its diameter. It is rocky, with traces of ice.
Jupiter's atmosphere is 89.8% hydrogen (H2) and 10% helium (He). Less than 1% are methane, ammonium, ethane, water and other components. Under this crown, the giant planet has 3 layers of clouds. The upper layer is iced ammonia with a pressure of about 1 atm., in the middle layer are methane and ammonium crystals, and the lower layer consists of water ice or the smallest liquid drops of water. The orange color of Jupiter's atmosphere is due to the combination of sulfur and phosphorus. It contains acetylene and ammonia, so this composition of the atmosphere is detrimental to people.
The bands that stretch along Jupiter's equator have been known to everyone for a long time. But no one has yet been able to really explain their origin. The main theory was the theory of convection - the lowering of colder gases to the surface, and the rise of hotter ones. But in 2010, it was suggested that the satellites (moons) of Jupiter influence the formation of the bands. Allegedly, by their attraction, they formed some “pillars” of substances, which also rotate and are viewed as stripes. The theory has been confirmed in the laboratory, experimentally and now seems most likely.
Perhaps the most mysterious and longest observation described in the characteristics of the planet can be considered the famous Great Red Spot on Jupiter. It was discovered by Robert Hooke in 1664 and has therefore been observed for nearly 350 years. This is a huge formation, constantly changing in size. Most likely, this is a long-lived, giant atmospheric vortex, its dimensions are 15x30 thousand km, for comparison, the diameter of the Earth is about 12.6 thousand km.
Jupiter's magnetic field is so huge that it even goes beyond the orbit of Saturn and is about 650,000,000 km. It exceeds the earth's by almost 12 times, and the inclination of the magnetic axis is 11 ° relative to the axis of rotation. Metallic hydrogen, present in the bowels of the planet, explains the presence of such a powerful magnetic field. It is an excellent conductor and, rotating at great speed, forms magnetic fields. On Jupiter, as well as on Earth, there are also 2 magnetic inverted poles. But the compass needle on the gas giant always points south.
To date, about 70 satellites can be found in the description of Jupiter, although there are supposedly about a hundred of them. The first and largest satellites of Jupiter - Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto - were discovered by Galileo Galilei back in 1610.
Most of the attention of scientists attracts the satellite Europa. According to the possibility of the existence of life, it follows the satellite of Saturn - Enceladus and takes second place. They believe that it may have life. First of all, due to the presence of a deep (up to 90 km) subglacial ocean, the volume of which exceeds even the Earth's ocean!
Ganymede, simply the largest moon in the solar system. So far, interest in its structure and characteristics is minimal.
Io is a volcanically active satellite, most of its surface is covered with volcanoes and filled with lava.
Presumably, on the satellite Callisto, there is also an ocean. Most likely it is under the surface, as evidenced by its magnetic field.
The density of Galium satellites is determined by their distance from the planet. For example: the density of the remotest of the large satellites - Callisto p \u003d 1.83 g / cm³, then as it approaches, the density increases: for Ganymede p \u003d 1.94 g / cm³, for Europe p \u003d 2.99 g / cm³, for Io p \u003d 3.53 g / cm³. All large satellites always face Jupiter on the same side and rotate synchronously.
The rest were discovered much later. Some of them rotate in the opposite direction, in comparison with the majority and represent some meteorite bodies of various shapes.
Mass: 1.9 * 1027 kg (318 times the mass of the Earth)
Diameter at equator: 142,984 km (11.3 times Earth's diameter)
Pole diameter: 133,708 km
Axis Tilt: 3.1°
Density: 1.33 g/cm3
Top layer temperature: approx. -160 °C
Period of revolution around the axis (day): 9.93 h
Distance from the Sun (average): 5.203 AU e. or 778 million km
Orbital period around the Sun (year): 11.86 years
Orbital speed: 13.1 km/s
Orbital eccentricity: e = 0.049
Orbital inclination to the ecliptic: i = 1°
Free fall acceleration: 24.8 m/s2
Satellites: yes 70pcs
