JUPITER

Jupiter weighs three times more than all the other planets combined. Jupiter is the fifth planet away from the Sun. Its great mass causes it to act like an enormous cosmic vacuum cleaner. The planet Jupiter (Jove) was named after the King of the Gods and the ruler of Olympus. It is the fourth brightest object seen from Earth and has been known since the prehistoric times. Its gravitational influence attracted much of the debris in the early solar system.

Without this thinning effect on the asteroid population the Earth would have suffered a much more severe bombardment from space during its history. Repeated catastrophic impacts would have almost certainly prevented the evolution of intelligent life. Without Jupiter guarding over us, we wouldn’t exist!

It is surrounded by liquid hydrogen. The Great Red Spot is a huge storm 8km,high 40,000km long,14,000km wide. Its winds blow at about 500kmph. As the spot moves around, it swallows up other storms. But it is shrinking.It is only half as big as it was hundred years ago.