After exploring Mercury's ice-and-fire-dominated surface, surviving Venus' scorching heat, resting in an terrestrial paradise, and searching for life on Mars, it's time to move on—but this time, harsher terrain awaits. In the Index series of articles, we travel through the planets of the solar system with fictional spaceships in order to collect in one place the interesting things and oddities of the specific planet. This time it is the turn of the largest member of our star system, Jupiter, without whose existence this article would not have been created – since there would probably be no life on Earth, the gas giant protects our planet like a shield and is actually protected by the entire solar system.
Photo: Emilia Nemeth/Index
In previous parts of this series of articles we wrote about rocky, terrestrial-type planets, or if you will, which like Earth – hence their name – are relatively small in size and have a solid surface. However, the other four planets in the solar system, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, cannot be compared to these at all. The planets listed are mostly composed of various gases, and do not have a solid surface in the general sense – so our imaginary spaceship cannot land on these planets, it can only observe the planets from the outside, or in more extreme cases, fall into them almost endlessly until we reach To the heart of the planets.
The largest planet in the solar system is named after the Roman god Jupiter, which may not seem familiar to everyone at first. However, if we say that the same god was already referred to by the Greeks as Zeus, it may be easier to determine who and what he is. Of course, the naming is not a coincidence, the Romans were clearly inspired by the size of the planet, because Jupiter's radius of 69,911 kilometers is eleven times wider than Earth, and astronomers of the time also bowed their heads in front of the planet. Planet size.
He almost became a star
From the outside, we can see that the planet is covered in distinctive streaks and eddies, which are cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water – these float in an atmosphere made up mostly of hydrogen and helium. What celestial bodies still consist mostly of hydrogen and helium? Our star is the sun. As you know, astronomers often refer to Jupiter as a falling star, since the planet has everything – or rather had to – become a star when it formed. But eventually, its mass no longer became large enough to initiate thermonuclear reactions in its core, and all that was left was a simple — albeit massive — gas planet. If Earth were the size of a grape, Jupiter would be the size of a basketball.
It is located 778 million kilometers or 5.2 astronomical units from the Sun on average – at this distance it takes sunlight to travel from the Sun to Jupiter in 43 minutes.
Although we cannot know for sure, it is unlikely that life would have evolved in the planet's atmosphere. Jupiter's temperature, pressure and materials are likely too extreme and volatile for living organisms to adapt to them — that's not necessarily true for the planet's moons, 95 of which orbit Jupiter according to the latest information from NASA. One of these also belongs to the very narrow circle whose members astronomers believe life could have developed.
Lord of the moons
As we wrote, Jupiter has 95 moons officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union. The four largest – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto – were first observed by astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1610 using an early version of his telescope. These four moons are now known as the Galilean moons and are among the most fascinating targets in our solar system. For example, Io is the most volcanically active celestial body in the solar system, Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system—even larger than Mercury—and the water-containing ocean beneath Europa's icy crust may contain life. Interestingly, this moon will also be the target of NASA's Europa Clipper mission scheduled to launch in 2024. The purpose of the mission is to learn as much as possible about the celestial body.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
For example, we already know that there is more water on Europa than on Earth, the only question is whether there are enough minerals and oxygen for life. We also know that there is a lot of oxygen on the surface of the celestial body, which is released by the bombardment of charged particles from the Sun and Jupiter, but because of the thick icy crust, we have not been able to see it in the structure of the water in the depths. However, according to a study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, oxygen can still escape from the surface.
According to colleagues at the University of Texas, this can occur mainly in so-called chaotic landscapes. A quarter of the Moon's surface is covered with a chaotic landscape dotted with sharp and flat channels and fissures. The oceans heated by the planet's core thin the ice here, which averages 15-25 kilometers thick, but in these regions it is only 3 kilometers thick. According to scientists' ideas, the warm, salty water that erupts melts the surface ice and carries oxygen-rich water to the depths. Why should we look for life beneath the surface? Well, since there are strong frosts on the surface of Europe, the average temperature is around minus 160 degrees Celsius.
The Great Red Spot
Among the planets of the solar system, the day on Jupiter is the shortest, and the planet rotates once on its axis in about ten Earth hours – however, Jupiter's year is much longer, as it orbits the Sun in 4,333 Earth days.
In the outer layers of the gaseous planet, there are likely three different cloud layers, which together extend about 71 kilometers thick towards the planet's interior. The upper cloud may consist of ammonium ice, the middle layer may consist of ammonium hydrosulfide crystals, and the inner layer may consist of water ice and water vapor. With no solid surface to slow storms, they sometimes rage across the planet's surface for centuries. This is the case with the Great Red Spot, which can be observed at 20 degrees south latitude. The high-pressure cyclone was already observed by Heinrich Schwabe in 1831, and since then, although with slight changes, winds still blow in it at speeds of up to 540 km/h, thus becoming one of the most distinctive points of Jupiter.
Interestingly, according to 2014 Hubble Space Telescope data, the size of the spot is decreasing rapidly, by about 1,000 km per year, although its current largest size is still 23,335 km.
As storms rage on the surface, pressure and temperature rise deep in the atmosphere, and hydrogen gas is compressed into a liquid state. As a result, Jupiter is home to the largest ocean in the solar system, one made of hydrogen rather than water. Incidentally, scientists believe that deep down towards the center of the planet, the pressure would be so great that the hydrogen atoms would be stripped of electrons, so that the liquid would be as electrically conductive as metal. Because of Jupiter's rapid rotation, this fluid also begins to act like a giant dynamo, thanks to the planet's extremely strong magnetic field.
Why can a planet be referred to as the “protector”? Because not only its magnetic field, but also its gravitational force is extraordinary – among other reasons, it has nearly a hundred moons. Jupiter also plays a more important role in the evolution of life on Earth — we can thank this planet for a small amount of asteroids colliding with Earth compared to other planets in the solar system. Jupiter's gravitational force easily deflects any celestial body approaching Earth. Without it, life on Earth as we know it today would likely not exist.
Parts of the series of articles published so far:
Mercury: It's scorching hot, but ice covers the planet closest to the sun
Venus: Named after the goddess of beauty but embodying the inferno of Hell
Land: No matter how much we search, we cannot find another planet like this in the universe
Mars: Two potatoes revolve around it, and there could be life on them
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