Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here,
Speaker 1: the planet Jupiter has superlatives despair. We'd expect nothing less
Speaker 1: from a giant planet named after a mythic king of
Speaker 1: the gods. Not only is Jupiter the largest planet in
Speaker 1: our Solar system, but it also spins at the fastest rate.
Speaker 1: This massive planet is a world where the days may
Speaker 1: be short, but giant storms can rage on for centuries.
Speaker 1: So today let's talk about Jupiter. The fifth planet from
Speaker 1: our Sun, has an equatorial diameter of about eighty nine
Speaker 1: thousand miles or one hundred and forty three thousand kilometers.
Speaker 1: Were Jupiter a hollow shell, you could fit more than
Speaker 1: one thousand, three hundred earths inside of it. For its
Speaker 1: huge size, its mass is only around three hundred and
Speaker 1: eighteen times that of Earth, but that's still two and
Speaker 1: a half times as massive as all all of the
Speaker 1: other planets in our Solar system combined. Still, next to
Speaker 1: the Sun, Jupiter looks puny. Our star accounts for ninety
Speaker 1: nine point eight percent of all of the mass in
Speaker 1: our Solar system, Jupiter included. Nevertheless, Jupiter is large enough
Speaker 1: to affect the Sun in ways that Earth never could.
Speaker 1: Jupiter doesn't orbit the Sun's center like all of the
Speaker 1: other planets. Instead, Jupiter orbits a spot in empty space
Speaker 1: just outside of the Sun's surface. Oh why, Okay, technically
Speaker 1: everything in the Solar System does exert gravity on everything else.
Speaker 1: The term for the center of mass between any two
Speaker 1: or more bodies is their Berry center. And now every
Speaker 1: other planet is so much less massive than the Sun
Speaker 1: that we barely tug on it. Our berry center with
Speaker 1: the Sun is within the Sun. But Jupiter is so
Speaker 1: big that it affects how the Sun moves too, so
Speaker 1: it's Berry center with the Sun is a little outside
Speaker 1: of the Sun. Jupiter's gargantuine bulk gives the Sun a
Speaker 1: slight but noticeable wobble. This is good to know, because
Speaker 1: if scientists ever detect that kind of wobble in a
Speaker 1: far off star, it could mean that a Jupiter sized
Speaker 1: planet is in its orbit. But size isn't the only
Speaker 1: thing setting Earth and Jupiter apart. Compositionally, our planets are
Speaker 1: totally different. Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are all terrestrial
Speaker 1: or rocky planets, a meaning that they have hard, rocky
Speaker 1: surfaces with a relatively thin gaseous atmosphere. Underneath the surface,
Speaker 1: layers of liquid and solid rock and metals make up
Speaker 1: their cores. Jupiter is a gas giant, which means lacks
Speaker 1: a solid surface and has an overwhelmingly thick gaseous atmosphere.
Speaker 1: For its part, Jupiter's two main ingredients are hydrogen and helium,
Speaker 1: though smaller quantities of metaane, ammonia, and water have also
Speaker 1: been detected. Since it doesn't have a hard crust, scientists
Speaker 1: define Jupiter's surface as the outer layer at which its
Speaker 1: atmospheric pressure equals that of Earth. Far below this external area,
Speaker 1: there's a layer dominated by molecular hydrogen. Beneath that you'll
Speaker 1: find a level whose primary component is liquid metallic hydrogen,
Speaker 1: a material reminiscent of the liquid mercury we find on Earth.
Speaker 1: The core at Jupiter's very center has inspired a lot
Speaker 1: of debate. Some astronomers have argued that there's no solid
Speaker 1: core at all, that Jupiter formed from gas and dust alone,
Speaker 1: or that any core once had eroded slowly over millions
Speaker 1: and billions of years. A data collected by NASA's Juno
Speaker 1: spacecraft tells us that there probably is a core, but
Speaker 1: we still don't know what it's made of. Our best
Speaker 1: guesses are rock and ice, as it seems less dense,
Speaker 1: and Earth's iron and nickel based in our core. The
Speaker 1: Juno mission, which entered Jupiter's orbit on July fourth of
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, was the first to get below the planet's
Speaker 1: clouds and send back detailed information about Jupiter's atmosphere and
Speaker 1: its moons Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, plus more data on
Speaker 1: how our Solar system formed. But let's talk more about
Speaker 1: Jupiter's so called surface. The planet has stripes or bands
Speaker 1: of color running around it from top to bottom, in
Speaker 1: shades of white to gray to reddish brown, each swirling
Speaker 1: with storms. Amazingly, neighboring bands of swirls move in opposite directions.
Speaker 1: Astronomers call the darker ones belts, while their lighter counterparts
Speaker 1: have been dubbed zones. Jupiter's stripes and swirls are windy
Speaker 1: clouds of ammonia and water floating in that gaseous atmosphere
Speaker 1: of hydrogen and helium. Variations in chemistry, trans its, parency, shape,
Speaker 1: and or temperature might explain the color differences. Tempests riddle
Speaker 1: the gas giant a far south of Jupiter's equator, there's
Speaker 1: a series of oval shaped storms that rotate counterclockwise, being
Speaker 1: whitish in coloration, and set off because they're moving through
Speaker 1: darker bands. These are nicknamed the String of Pearls. Since
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, the number of Pearl storms has varied
Speaker 1: from six to nine. Even better known is the Great
Speaker 1: Red Spot, closer to the equator than the Pearls, a
Speaker 1: giant storm with a crimson tint. It's made up of
Speaker 1: winds that whirl at a rate of some two hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy miles an hour that's four hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: kilometers an hour. Although researchers think that the giant storm
Speaker 1: may be shrinking, its current dimensions are still highly impressive.
Speaker 1: At over ten thousand miles wide, that's more than sixty
Speaker 1: thousand kilometers, the Great Red Spot is large enough to
Speaker 1: envelope our entire planet. It's caught between two powerful jet streams,
Speaker 1: one to the east and one to the west, that
Speaker 1: keep it more or less in place. Astronomers have been
Speaker 1: keeping a constant eye on the storm since eighteen thirty. Therefore,
Speaker 1: we know that at minimum, it's more than one hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety earth years old. Its longevity may have something
Speaker 1: to do with Jupiter's rotational orbit, that is, the length
Speaker 1: of its days. Here on Earth, we complete a new
Speaker 1: spin around Earth's axis once every twenty four hours, no
Speaker 1: matter where on the planet we reside. But since Jupiter
Speaker 1: is largely gaseous, some of its latitudinal regions rotate faster
Speaker 1: than others do. At Jupiter's poles, a day lasts for
Speaker 1: nine hours and fifty six minutes. Meanwhile, places near Jupiter's
Speaker 1: equator see brisk nine hour fifty minute days. Jupiter has
Speaker 1: the shortest days of all the planet in this solar system.
Speaker 1: Of course, Jupiter's infamous storms aren't its only feature. It
Speaker 1: also boasts rings and a plethora of moons. Yep Like Saturn, Uranus,
Speaker 1: and Neptune, Jupiter also has rings, albeit less dramatic ones.
Speaker 1: NASA's Voyager one spacecraft discovered Jupiter's rings in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1: They're so faint that they're practically invisible from Earth's surface.
Speaker 1: The most visible one is bright and thin, only about
Speaker 1: twenty miles thick in some places that's about thirty kilometers.
Speaker 1: One inside and two outside of it are thicker and
Speaker 1: much less defined. Data sent back by the Galileo spacecraft
Speaker 1: show that they might have formed when dust from interplanetary
Speaker 1: meteoroids smashed into Jupiter's moons, which the planet has. As
Speaker 1: we said, a lot of No less than ninety five
Speaker 1: known moons are currently orbiting this gas giant. Jupiter's four
Speaker 1: large moons were the first moons discovered beyond Earth. These
Speaker 1: are the four Galilean moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
Speaker 1: Ganymede is the biggest. It's actually the biggest moon in
Speaker 1: the Solar System and is larger than the planet Mercury,
Speaker 1: a fitting jewel in the crown of this planetary giant.
Speaker 1: But these moons aren't just beautiful. They may help us
Speaker 1: learn about the possibility of sustaining life beyond our own
Speaker 1: little blue planet. In particular, Europa may be geologically active
Speaker 1: under its crust, and it seems to even contain an
Speaker 1: ocean of liquid water under its frozen surface, meaning it's
Speaker 1: possible that there are places on Europa that could support
Speaker 1: life as we know it. NASA researchers are launching a
Speaker 1: spacecraft called Europa Clipper on October tenth of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four to conduct dozens of flybys of the Moon and
Speaker 1: help us learn more about its icy shell, the ocean underneath,
Speaker 1: and its geology and inner makeup to follow along with
Speaker 1: its cherney, which will take several years. Because space is big.
Speaker 1: You can go to Europa dot NASA dot gov. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is based on the article Jupiter, Anatomy of a
Speaker 1: gas Giant on HowStuffWorks dot com, written by Mark Mancini.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuffworks dot com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four
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