Jupiter

The planet Jupiter is the 4th object the most glittering in the sky, after the Sun, the Moon and Venus and loosens more energy in the space which it receives from it of the Sun.

Beam: 778,33 million km
Equatorial diameter: 142 984 km
Polar diameter: 133 708 km
Mass:1,9x1027kg (318 times the Earth)

Jupiter (Zeus in Greek) is by far the biggest planet of the solar system its size is 318 times superior to that of the Earth.
It is visible all night long when Jupiter and the Sun are set in the sky with regard to the Earth. It is at this moment there that it is in closer of the Earth. These oppositions follow each other in intervals of 13 months. Already by means of small objectives, we can discern the strong flattening of the planet. On the surface of Jupiter, we observe the red spot, in the south zone, in a latitude of 35 °. While the Earth and the telluric planets are solid objects constituted by a mixture of iron and silicates, essentially surrounded with a little gas,

Jupiter is essentially constituted by hydrogen and by a little helium, as the Sun. Jupiter emits twice more energy than it receives from it from the Sun. The nucleus formed by rocks and by ice is doubtless surrounded by a liquid coat. The Galileo probe penetrated into the atmosphere of Jupiter during one hour in the middle of 320 kph winds and showed that the hydrogen dominated and that the temperature increased very fast in depth. Jupiter is endowed with a system of rings, as all the huge planets, constituted by small rocky fragments assembled in a disk in rotation, wide and very fine.

nota: A planet is more brilliant than a star, it shines with a constant brightness among stars. Planets sparkle less than stars. To identify planets it is necessary to get acquainted with the stars of the zodiac because they follow the ecliptic.

Jupiter possesses an enormous cyclone on its surface, the famous big red spot. It was discovered by Cassini, 300 years ago. This cyclone measures 12000 x 25000 km; twice the planet Earth. Besides its gigantic size, its life cycle remains unexplained. Indeed, a simple cyclone should evolve in the time and possibly to disappear completely, while in three centuries of observation, the spot that little changed. The mechanism in its origin stays a scientific enigma.

This against the moved closer photography realized to Voyager 1 on June 6th, 1979, ( stressed colors).
For more than a century, the astronomers thought that the Big Red Spot was the biggest observable structure on the surface of Jupiter. Recently images of the vessel Cassini revealed something of at least so big: the Big Spot Sinks.

Jupiter played the role of shield, defender of the life on our planet. If Jupiter was not present, the bombardment on Earth would be 1000 times as frequent. A bombardment would take place every 60 000 years and the life would have missed stability to bloom, we would be at the bacterial stage there.
The presence of Jupiter allowed the Earth to become a planet where abound thousands of alive sorts. The presence of a huge planet shows itself of a vital importance in a solar system (see exoplanètes).

The destructive objects are mainly attracted by the huge planet Jupiter

recomposed images

Around Jupiter, constituted a real solar system in miniature. A lot of matter would have be needed so that the heart of Jupiter ignites. More than 60 satellites revolve around him, they are all situated on the equatorial plan, as the planets around the Sun.

Four Galilean moons of Jupiter, from top to bottom: Io, Europe, Ganymede and Callisto.

The ballet of its four main satellites (Io, Europe, Ganymede, Callisto) can observe with a simple pair of binoculars 10x50, an instrument of 60mm of diameter will reveal two wide brownish belts, parallel to the equator of the huge planet.

Here 4 moons Galileans. Jupiter possesses more than 60 known natural satellites names of which are pulled by the Greek mythology.

On this photography, below to the left, we can see  Ganymede who walks past Jupiter.

The first collision took place in 1992. The comet passed if near Jupiter that it broke in about twenty fragments. Two years later, in the following passage, fragments crashed on Jupiter by producing a powerful flash of lighting. The event was observed for several weeks, by almost all the look-out observatories, in all the wavelengths, since the ultraviolet ray until the infrared.
Image of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 seen by Hubble in May, 1994.