Jupiter
Cloud bands are clearly visible on Jupiter. Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS.

Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System and contains nearly 3/4 of all planetary matter.

With no solid surface, Jupiter is a gas and liquid filled giant. Its turbulent belts of clouds circulate parallel to the equator and often contain oval spots which are storm systems with the largest being easily twice the diameter of Earth. The great red spot has been observed for at least 300 years and rotates counter-clockwise with wind speeds of 270 miles per hour [430 km/hr].

Although observed and studied from Earth for centuries it wasn't until the mid 1970's that humans were able to get a closer look with the spacecraft Pioneer 10 and 11. The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft were launched with the specific purpose of collecting information and data on the Jovian worlds. In December 1995 the Galileo spacecraft entered into orbit and began it's long-term study of Jupiter and it's moons, a probe was also sent deep into the atmosphere of the gas giant.

Selected radiation astronomy

Meteors

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image taken on July 23, 2009, showing a blemish of about 5,000 miles long left by the 2009 Jupiter impact.[1] Credit: .
Brown spots mark the places where fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 tore through Jupiter's atmosphere in July 1994. Credit: Hubble Space Telescope Comet Team and NASA.
The Great Red Spot is decreasing in size (May 15, 2014). Credit: NASA Hubble Space Telescope.
File:Jupiter-flahs.jpg
A false-color composite image of Jupiter and its South Equatorial Belt shows an unusually bright spot, or outbreak, where winds are lofting particles to high altitudes. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/W. M. Keck Observatory.
File:High-flying white clouds above Jupiter.jpg
Photo shows high-flying white clouds above Jupiter. Credit: NASA/SWRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran.{{fairuse}}

Jupiter has been called the Solar System's vacuum cleaner,[2] because of its immense gravity well and location near the inner Solar System. It receives the most frequent comet impacts of the Solar System's planets.[3]

A 1997 survey of historical astronomical drawings suggested that the astronomer Cassini may have recorded an impact scar in 1690. The survey determined eight other candidate observations had low or no possibilities of an impact.[4] A fireball was photographed by Voyager 1 during its Jupiter encounter in March 1979.[5] During the period July 16, 1994, to July 22, 1994, over 20 fragments from the comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 (SL9, formally designated D/1993 F2) collided with Jupiter's southern hemisphere, providing the first direct observation of a collision between two Solar System objects. This impact provided useful data on the composition of Jupiter's atmosphere.[6][7]

On July 19, 2009, an impact site was discovered at approximately 216 degrees longitude in System 2.[8][9] This impact left behind a black spot in Jupiter's atmosphere, similar in size to Oval BA. Infrared observation showed a bright spot where the impact took place, meaning the impact warmed up the lower atmosphere in the area near Jupiter's south pole.[10]

A fireball, smaller than the previous observed impacts, was detected on June 3, 2010, by Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer in Australia, and was later discovered to have been captured on video by another amateur astronomer in the Philippines.[11] Yet another fireball was seen on August 20, 2010.[12]

On September 10, 2012, another fireball was detected.[5][13]

The second image at right shows the atmospheric impact sites for the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragments. Spectroscopic studies revealed absorption lines in the Jovian spectrum due to diatomic sulfur (S2) and carbon disulfide (CS2), the first detection of either in Jupiter, and only the second detection of S2 in any astronomical object. Other molecules detected included ammonia (NH3) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S). The amount of sulfur implied by the quantities of these compounds was much greater than the amount that would be expected in a small cometary nucleus, showing that material from within Jupiter was being revealed.

"A false-color composite image [first on the left] of Jupiter and its South Equatorial Belt shows an unusually bright spot, or outbreak, where winds are lofting particles to high altitudes in this image made from data obtained by the W.M. Keck telescope on Nov. 11, 2010."[14]

"The white clouds [in the second image down on the left], which get up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide or so, are high up in Jupiter's atmosphere — so high that they're very cold, and the material they shed is therefore almost certainly frozen."[15]

"It's snowing on Jupiter, and we're seeing how it works."[15]

"It's probably mostly ammonia ice, but there may be water ice mixed into it, so it's not exactly like the snow that we have [on Earth]. And I was using my imagination when I said it was snowing there — it could be hail."[15]

"This photo taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on May 19, 2017, at 5:50 UTC from an altitude of 5,500 miles (8,900 kilometers) shows high-flying white clouds composed of water ice and/or ammonia ice. In some areas, these clouds appear to form squall lines — narrow bands of high winds and storms associated with a cold front."[15]

References

  1. Dennis Overbye (24 July 2009). Hubble Takes Snapshot of Jupiter’s ‘Black Eye’. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/science/space/25hubble.html?ref=science. Retrieved 25 July 2009. 
  2. Richard A. Lovett (15 December 2006). Stardust's Comet Clues Reveal Early Solar System. National Geographic News. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/061215-comet-stardust.html. Retrieved 8 January 2007. 
  3. Nakamura, T.; Kurahashi, H. (1998). "Collisional Probability of Periodic Comets with the Terrestrial Planets: An Invalid Case of Analytic Formulation". Astronomical Journal 115 (2): 848–54. doi:10.1086/300206. http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1538-3881/115/2/848/970144.html. Retrieved 2007-08-28. 
  4. Tabe, Isshi; Watanabe, Jun-ichi; Jimbo, Michiwo (February 1997). "Discovery of a Possible Impact SPOT on Jupiter Recorded in 1690". Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan 49: L1–L5. 
  5. 5.0 5.1 Franck Marchis (10 September 2012). Another fireball on Jupiter?. Cosmic Diary blog. http://cosmicdiary.org/fmarchis/2012/09/10/another-fireball-on-jupiter/. Retrieved 11 September 2012. 
  6. Ron Baalke. Comet Shoemaker-Levy Collision with Jupiter. NASA. http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/sl9/. Retrieved 2007-01-02. 
  7. Robert R. Britt (23 August 2004). Remnants of 1994 Comet Impact Leave Puzzle at Jupiter. space.com. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040823.html. Retrieved 20 February 2007. 
  8. Staff (21 July 2009). Amateur astronomer discovers Jupiter collision, In: ABC News online. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/21/2632368.htm. Retrieved 21 July 2009. 
  9. Mike Salway (19 July 2009). Breaking News: Possible Impact on Jupiter, Captured by Anthony Wesley, In: IceInSpace News. IceInSpace. http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?id=70,550,0,0,1,0. Retrieved 19 July 2009. 
  10. Grossman, Lisa (July 20, 2009). "Jupiter sports new 'bruise' from impact". New Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17491-jupiter-sports-new-bruise-from-impact.html. 
  11. Michael Bakich (4 June 2010). Another impact on Jupiter. Astronomy Magazine online. http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=9918. Retrieved 4 June 2010. 
  12. Beatty Kelly (22 August 2010). Another Flash on Jupiter!. Sky Publishing. http://web.archive.org/web/20100827180208/http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/observingblog/101264994.html. Retrieved 23 August 2010. "Masayuki Tachikawa was observing ... 18:22 Universal Time on the 20th ... Kazuo Aoki posted an image ... Ishimaru of Toyama prefecture observed the event" 
  13. George Hall (September 2012). George's Astrophotography. http://georgeastro.weebly.com/jupiter.html. Retrieved 17 September 2012. "10 Sept. 2012 11:35 UT .. observed by Dan Petersen" 
  14. Nancy Atkinson (24 December 2015). How Jupiter is Getting Its Belt Back. Universe Today. http://www.universetoday.com/79931/how-jupiter-is-getting-its-belt-back/. Retrieved 12 February 2017. 
  15. 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 Scott Bolton (30 May 2017). 'It's Snowing on Jupiter': Stunning Photos Show Clouds High in Gas Giant's Skies. Space.com. http://www.space.com/37009-jupiter-snow-high-clouds-juno-photos.html. Retrieved 4 June 2017. 
Selected topic

Poles

File:Mottled toward North Pole.jpg
The familiar banded appearance of Jupiter gradually gives way to a more mottled appearance closer to the north pole. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.
File:North Pole hemisphere.jpg
Jupiter's northern half (its northern hemisphere) is shown, from pole to equator, in this map produced from images taken by the Cassini spacecraft in 2000. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
File:South Pole hemisphere.jpg
Jupiter's southern half (its southern hemisphere) is shown, from pole to equator, in this map produced from images taken by the Cassini spacecraft in 2000. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
This image shows Jupiter's south pole, as seen by NASA's Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometers). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles.{{free media}}

"The familiar banded appearance of Jupiter gradually gives way to a more mottled appearance closer to the north pole in this true color image [on the right] taken in 2000 by NASA's Cassini spacecraft."[1]

"The intricate structures seen in the polar region are clouds of different chemical composition, height and thickness. Clouds are organized by winds, and the mottled appearance in the polar regions suggests more vortex-type motion and winds of less vigor at higher latitudes."[1]

"One possible contributor is that the horizontal component of the Coriolis force, which arises from the planet's rotation and is responsible for curving the trajectories of ocean currents and winds on Earth, has its greatest effect at high latitudes and vanishes at the equator. This tends to create small, intense vortices at high latitudes on Jupiter. Another possibility may lie in that fact that Jupiter overall emits nearly as much of its own heat as it absorbs from the Sun, and this internal heat flux is very likely greater at the poles. This condition could lead to enhanced convection at the poles and more vortex-type structures."[1]

"The resolution here is 114 kilometers (71 miles) per pixel. This contrast-enhanced, edge-sharpened frame was composited from images take at different wavelengths with Cassini's narrow-angle camera, from a distance of 19 million kilometers (11.8 million miles). The spacecraft was in almost a direct line between the Sun and Jupiter, so the solar illumination on Jupiter is almost full phase."[1]

"These color maps [second down on the right] of Jupiter were constructed from images taken by the narrow-angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 11 and 12, 2000, as the spacecraft neared Jupiter during its flyby of the giant planet. Cassini was on its way to Saturn. They are the most detailed global color maps of Jupiter ever produced. The smallest visible features are about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across."[2]

"The maps are composed of 36 images: a pair of images covering Jupiter's northern and southern hemispheres was acquired in two colors every hour for nine hours as Jupiter rotated beneath the spacecraft. Although the raw images are in just two colors, 750 nanometers (near-infrared) and 451 nanometers (blue), the map's colors are close to those the human eye would see when gazing at Jupiter."[2]

"The maps show a variety of colorful cloud features, including parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the Great Red Spot, multi-lobed chaotic regions, white ovals and many small vortices. Many clouds appear in streaks and waves due to continual stretching and folding by Jupiter's winds and turbulence. The bluish-gray features along the north edge of the central bright band are equatorial "hot spots," meteorological systems such as the one entered by NASA's Galileo probe. Small bright spots within the orange band north of the equator are lightning-bearing thunderstorms. The polar regions are less clearly visible because Cassini viewed them at an angle and through thicker atmospheric haze (such as the whitish material in the south polar map) [third down on the right]."[2]

"This image [on the left] shows Jupiter's south pole, as seen by NASA's Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometers). The oval features are cyclones, up to 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) in diameter. Multiple images taken with the JunoCam instrument on three separate orbits were combined to show all areas in daylight, enhanced color, and stereographic projection."[3]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Sue Lavoie (13 December 2000). PIA02856: High Latitude Mottling on Jupiter. Pasadena, California USA: NASA/JPL. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02856. Retrieved 2017-02-12. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Sue Lavoie (27 March 2006). PIA07783: Cassini's Best Maps of Jupiter (North Polar Map). NASA/JPL. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07783. Retrieved 2017-02-12. 
  3. Betsy Asher Hall and Gervasio Robles (25 May 2017). PIA21641: Southern Storms. Pasadena, California USA: NASA/JPL. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21641. Retrieved 2017-07-10. 
Selected astronomy

Planetary astronomy

File:Jupiter-12-years-Damian-Peach.jpg
These 12 images were taken between 2003 and 2015. Credit: Damian Peach.
File:Global Upheaval at Jupiter .jpg
Images in the visible-light and infrared parts of the spectrum highlight the massive changes roiling the atmosphere of Jupiter. Credit: A. Wesley, A. Kazemoto and C. Go, NASA/IRTF/JPL-Caltech/NAOJ.

"Jupiter takes 12 years to make one trip around the Sun. These 12 images [on top] were taken between 2003 and 2015. At far left we see Jupiter in 2003, and the years proceed counterclockwise. The 2015 view is immediately above 2003."[1]

"Jupiter’s axial tilt is just 3° or nearly straight up and down, so seasons don’t exist. One part of the Jovian year is much the same as another. Still, as you can plainly see, the solar system’s biggest planet has plenty of weather."[2]

"Just look at the Great Red Spot or GRS. Through about 2008, it’s relatively large and pale but suddenly darkens in 2010 at the same time the South Equatorial Cloud Belt (the wide stripe of clouds above the Spot) disappears. If you look closely at the Spot from year to year, you’ll see another big change — it’s shrinking! The GRS has been dwindling for several decades, but it’s amazing how obvious the difference is in only a dozen years."[2]

"The planet gives off 1.6 times as much energy as it get from the Sun."[2]

"Fun to think that the light we see from Jupiter is reflected sunlight, but if we could view it with heat-sensing, infrared eyes, it would glow like an ember."[2]

"Images [second down] in the visible-light and infrared parts of the spectrum highlight the massive changes roiling the atmosphere of Jupiter. In the visible-light images on the left that were obtained by amateur astronomers, Jupiter can be seen "losing" a brown-colored belt south of the equator called the South Equatorial Belt (SEB) from 2009 to 2010. This belt returned in 2011 and was still present in 2012. From 2011 to January 2012, a belt north of the equator known as the North Equatorial Belt (NEB) can be seen to be thinning out. In 2011, it whitened to an extent not seen in over a century. In March of 2012, after the last picture in this series was taken, the northern belt began to darken again."[3]

"Scientists compared the visible-light data to data obtained in infrared wavelengths (middle and right columns), which show progressively deeper levels in the Jovian atmosphere. The infrared images were obtained from NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, except for the 2011 image in the 8.7-micron wavelength (right column, third from the top), which was taken by the Subaru Telescope, also in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Those data showed a thickening of the deeper cloud decks in the northern belt during that time, and a partial thickening of the upper cloud deck. The South Equatorial Belt saw both levels of clouds thicken and then clear up. The infrared data also resolved brown elongated features in the whitened area of the North Equatorial Belt known as "brown barges" as distinct features and revealed them to be regions clearer of clouds and probably characterized by downwelling, dry air."[3]

"Also visible in the infrared observations are a series of blue-gray features that are the clearest and driest regions on the planet and show up as apparent hotspots in the infrared view because they reveal the radiation emerging from a very deep layer of Jupiter's atmosphere. Those hotspots disappeared from 2010 to 2011, but had reestablished themselves by June of this year, coincident with the whitening and re-darkening of the North Equatorial Belt."[3]

References

  1. Damian Peach (23 December 2015). Once Around The Sun With Jupiter. Universe Today. http://www.universetoday.com/121259/once-around-the-sun-with-jupiter/. Retrieved 2017-02-12. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Bob King (23 December 2015). Once Around The Sun With Jupiter. Universe Today. http://www.universetoday.com/121259/once-around-the-sun-with-jupiter/. Retrieved 2017-02-12. 
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 A. Wesley, A. Kazemoto and C. Go (March 2012). Global Upheaval at Jupiter. SWRI. https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/media-gallery/jupiter. Retrieved 2017-02-12. 
Selected deity

Jupiter

Jupiter's head is crowned with laurel and ivy. Sardonyx cameo (Louvre). Credit: Jastrow.
Jupiter is in a wall painting from Pompeii, with eagle and globe. Credit: Olivierw.

A dominant line of scholarship has held that Rome lacked a body of myths in its earliest period, or that this original mythology has been irrecoverably obscured by the influence of the Greek narrative tradition.[1]

Jupiter is depicted as the twin of Juno in a statue at Praeneste that showed them nursed by Fortuna Primigenia.[2] An inscription that is also from Praeneste, however, says that Fortuna Primigenia was Jupiter's first-born child.[3] Jacqueline Champeaux sees this contradiction as the result of successive different cultural and religious phases, in which a wave of influence coming from the Hellenic world made Fortuna the daughter of Jupiter.[4] The childhood of Zeus is an important theme in Greek religion, art and literature, but there are only rare (or dubious) depictions of Jupiter as a child.[5]

References

  1. Hendrik Wagenvoort, "Characteristic Traits of Ancient Roman Religion," in Pietas: Selected Studies in Roman Religion (Brill, 1980), p. 241, ascribing the view that there was no early Roman mythology to Walter Friedrich Otto and his school.
  2. Described by Cicero, De divinatione 2.85, as cited by R. Joy Littlewood, "Fortune," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford University Press, 2010), vol. 1, p. 212.
  3. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) 1.60, as cited by Littlewood, "Fortune," p. 212.
  4. J. Champeaux Fortuna. Le culte de la Fortune à Rome et dans le monde romain. I Fortuna dans la religion archaïque 1982 Rome: Publications de l'Ecole Française de Rome; as reviewed by John Scheid in Revue de l' histoire des religions 1986 203 1: pp. 67–68 (Comptes rendus).
  5. William Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (London, 1908), pp. 223–225.
Selected image
File:Nhsc2013-014a.jpg

This map shows the distribution of water in the stratosphere of Jupiter as measured with the Herschel space observatory. Credit: Water map: ESA/Herschel/T. Cavali et al.; Jupiter image: NASA/ESA/Reta Beebe (New Mexico State University).

Selected meteor

Blue astronomy

See Jovian clouds in striking shades of blue in this new view taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/ Seán Doran.{{free media}}

"The Juno spacecraft captured this image when the spacecraft was only 11,747 miles (18,906 kilometers) from the tops of Jupiter’s clouds — that’s roughly as far as the distance between New York City and Perth, Australia. The color-enhanced image, which captures a cloud system in Jupiter’s northern hemisphere, was taken on Oct. 24, 2017 at 10:24 a.m. PDT (1:24 p.m. EDT) when Juno was at a latitude of 57.57 degrees (nearly three-fifths of the way from Jupiter’s equator to its north pole) and performing its ninth close flyby of the gas giant planet."[1]

"The spatial scale in this image is 7.75 miles/pixel (12.5 kilometers/pixel)."[1]

"Because of the Juno-Jupiter-Sun angle when the spacecraft captured this image, the higher-altitude clouds can be seen casting shadows on their surroundings. The behavior is most easily observable in the whitest regions in the image, but also in a few isolated spots in both the bottom and right areas of the image."[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran (30 November 2017). Jupiter Blues. Washington, DC USA: NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia21972/jupiter-blues. Retrieved 28 June 2018. 
Selected moon

Himalia

Himalia is seen by spacecraft Cassini. Credit: .

Mean orbit radius of Himalia around Jupiter is 11,460,000 km[1]

Period is 250.56 d (0.704 a)[1]

"Unfortunately the numeration of Jupiter's satellites is now in precisely the same confusion as that of Saturn's system was before the numbers were abandoned and names substituted. A similar course would seem to be advisable here; the designation V for the inner satellite [Amalthea] was tolerated for a time, as it was considered to be in a class by itself; but it has now got companions, so that this subterfuge disappears. The substitution of names for numerals is certainly more poetic."[2]

The moon was sometimes called Hestia, after the Hestia the Greek goddess, from 1955 to 1975.[3]

At a distance of about 11.5 million km from Jupiter, Himalia takes about 251 Earth days to complete one orbit.[4] It is the largest member of the Himalia group, the moons orbiting between 11.4 and 13 million kilometres from Jupiter at an inclination of about 27.5°.[5] The orbital elements are as of January 2000.[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Jacobson, R. A. (2000). "The orbits of outer Jovian satellites". Astronomical Journal 120 (5): 2679–2686. doi:10.1086/316817. https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/2014/15175/1/00-1187.pdf. 
  2. Crommelin, A. C. D. (March 10, 1905). "Provisional Elements of Jupiter's Satellite VI". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 65 (5): 524–527. doi:10.1093/mnras/65.5.524. 
  3. Payne-Gaposchkin, Cecilia; Katherine Haramundanis (1970). Introduction to Astronomy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-478107-4. 
  4. "Himalia". Solar System Exploration. NASA. December 5, 2017. Retrieved 2018-09-09.
  5. Jewitt, David C.; Sheppard, Scott; Porco, Carolyn (2004). "Jupiter's Outer Satellites and Trojans". In Bagenal, F.. Jupiter: The planet, Satellites and Magnetosphere. Cambridge University Press. http://www.dtm.ciw.edu/users/sheppard/pub/Sheppard04JupChapter.pdf. 
Selected theory

Astrognosy

Diagram is of Jupiter, its interior, surface features, rings, and inner moons. Credit: Kelvinsong.

The model for the interior of Jupiter suggests the occurrence of such materials as metallic hydrogen.