Jupiter is the King of the planets in our Solar System,
being by far the most massive and larger than any of the other in the Solar System.
Jupiter is the fifth planet out from the Sun and five times farther out than Earth,
orbiting beyond the Asteroid Belt that divides the inner terrestrial planets
from the outer gas giant planets.
Although its distance from Earth varies throughout the year,
Jupiter’s enormous size allows it to still be one
of the brightest objects in the night sky, brighter than any star.
As such a bright object, Jupiter has a long history of being observed,
but it wasn’t until the invention of the telescope that Jupiter’s true,
stunning beauty and intriguing design became known.
Jupiter’s physical parameters are impressive.
Its diameter is approximately 11 times larger than Earth’s.
Its mass is almost 2.5 times greater than Mercury,
Mars, Venus, Earth, Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn combined.
And due to Jupiter’s monstrous mass, the force of gravity you would feel
at the top of Jupiter’s atmosphere would be about 2.5 times greater than here on Earth.
This means that if you weigh 200 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 500 pounds on Jupiter.
Now, Jupiter is a drastically different kind of planet from Earth.
Earth is a terrestrial planet, meaning it has a rocky surface
and that defines the majority of its size.
Jupiter on the other hand is classified as a "Gas Giant."
It has no visible solid surface and its size is dominated
by an extremely thick and dense gaseous atmosphere.
Jupiter’s atmosphere is composed of various layers of gas,
preventing us from seeing very deep into the atmosphere.
Even looking through a small telescope, you can see the outermost layers
of Jupiter's atmosphere and they're visible as distinctly impressive bands.
The alternating light and dark colored bands are caused by the turbulent winds
and the storms that stir up different varieties of gases
and they cause the clouds to rise and to fall to different heights.
Probably the most recognizable and fascinating feature on Jupiter is its “Great Red Spot.”
Named for its appearance, this giant oval-shaped storm in Jupiter’s atmosphere has existed
as far back in time as telescopes have been able to observe it.
In many ways this storm is similar in structure to hurricanes that we have here on Earth,
but far more extreme and gigantic in proportion.
It has a size 3 times larger than our entire planet,
and reaches wind speeds almost 400 miles per hour.
The amazing turbulence of Jupiter’s atmosphere
is driven in part by Jupiter’s rotation speed.
While Earth takes 24 hours to make one rotation on its axis,
the much larger Jupiter makes one rotation in less than 10 hours.
This incredibly rapid rotation makes Jupiter
the fastest rotating planet in the Solar System,
and sets up the conditions for the Great Red Spot
along with the other extreme atmospheric conditions.
King of the planets, Jupiter is also host to an impressive array of moons.
More than 60 moons have been discovered orbiting around Jupiter.
These moons vary in all shapes and sizes, from irregularly shaped moons
only a few miles in diameter, to Ganymede, the largest moon in the Solar System,
one that is even bigger than the planet Mercury.
Of all of Jupiter’s moons, the most well-known are the four Galilean moons:
Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
And these four moons are Jupiter’s largest
and even big enough to be visible in backyard telescopes.
The extreme diversity of all the moons can be easily seen in these four examples.
Io is a violently active moon, with the greatest amount
of volcanic activity in the whole Solar System.
Some of its volcanoes spew gases and vapors hundreds of miles above its surface.
Onn the other hand, Europa is a world that is encased under a frozen surface.
The largest moon--Ganymede-- is a cold and rocky world
with a diameter over 3200 miles wide.
And last of all, the darkest and farthest out of the Galilean moons--Callisto--
is the most heavily cratered object in the Solar System.
Fire, ice, rock, and craters. Jupiter and its system of moons are
an incredible testament to the existence and functional complexity
and fine-tuning of the laws in our Cosmos. With its multitude of orbiting moons,
having variation in size and scale and composition,
the Jupiter system resembles a miniature Solar System.
Yet the same physical laws that maintain Jupiter’s complex system,
also govern the larger arrangement of our Solar System
and ultimately the Cosmos as a whole.
As we study this small-scale, yet analogous system,
we see that these celestial bodies demonstrate an intelligence behind
the order and operation and they attest to God's creative nature.