Jupiter
In the planet series on this blog, here is Jupiter. Jupiter is the fastest spinning planet in our solar system rotating once in just under 10 hours. That is very fast considering how large Jupiter is. This also means that Jupiter has the shortest day of all the planets in our solar system. Jupiter is a gas planet. Jupiter’s equator rotates a bit faster than its polar regions at a speed of 28,273 miles/hour (about 43,000 k/h). Jupiter’s day varies from 9 hours and 56 minutes around the poles to 9 hours and 50 minutes close to the equator.
Jupiter orbits around the sun once every 11.86 Earth years, or once every 4,330.6 Earth days. Jupiter travels at an average speed of 29,236 miles per hour or 47,051 k/h in its orbit around the sun. The great red spot is a giant, storm in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is more than twice the size of Earth. Winds inside this storm reach speeds of about 270 miles per hour. Nobody knows when the Great Red Spot first appeared on Jupiter, but it has been seen on Jupiter ever since astronomers started looking through telescopes about 400 years ago.
The gravity on Jupiter is greater than the gravity on Earth because Jupiter is more massive. Although Jupiter is a great deal larger in size, its surface gravity is just 2.4 times that of the surface gravity of Earth. This is because Jupiter is mostly made up of gases. Jupiter has faint, narrow rings. Unlike Saturn, which has bright ice rings, Jupiter has dark rings which are made up of dust and tiny pieces of rock. Jupiter’s rings were discovered in 1980.
The colored stripes on Jupiter are called bands. There are two types of bands on Jupiter. The light colored bands are called zones. These are regions where gas in Jupiter’s atmosphere is rising upwards. The dark bands are called belts. These are regions where the gas in Jupiter’s atmosphere is sinking downwards. The colors in the bands are caused by differences in their temperatures and their composition. Bands which are next to each other, have winds which move in opposite directions.
