This video is going to explore the properties of the 2 gas giants planets of our solar system;
Jupiter,
and Saturn.
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Known as a gas giant, Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun,
and by far, the largest planet in the solar system.
It is divided into 3 main regions: the core, the mantle, and the atmosphere.
Having a mass of about 1.9x10^27 kilograms,
it is more than twice the mass of all the other planets in the solar system combined.
Jupiter is kind of its own miniature solar system resembling a star in composition.
In fact, if it had been about 80 times more massive than it is now,
it would have become a star rather than a planet.
The orbital period of Jupiter is about 12 Earth years with a rotation period of around 10 hours.
The average temperature on Jupiter is around –148 deg C
or –234 deg F due to its mean distance of roughly 778 million km from the Sun.
Jupiter does not have a solid surface and therefore only has
an atmosphere which is mostly composed of hydrogen and helium
similar to the Sun with a gravitational force of about 20.87 m/s^2.
Deep in Jupiter’s atmosphere, the pressure and temperature increase
to the point where the hydrogen gas compresses into a liquid.
At depths of about one-third of the way,
liquid hydrogen becomes metallic and electrically conducting.
In this metallic layer, a powerful magnetic field
is generated by electrical currents driven by Jupiter’s fast rotation.
Jupiter’s enormous magnetic field is almost 20,000 times as powerful as Earth’s.
Trapped within Jupiter’s magnetosphere are swarms of charged particles.
Jupiter’s rings and moons are embedded in
an intense radiation belt of electrons and ions trapped by the magnetic field.
Jupiter has many moons including 4 largest moons called Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
Io is the most volcanically active body in our solar system.
Ganymede is the largest planetary moon and the only moon in the solar
system known to have its own magnetic field.
A liquid ocean may lie beneath the frozen crust of Europa,
and icy oceans may also lie beneath the crusts of Callisto and Ganymede.
Jupiter’s appearance is a display of beautiful colors and atmospheric features.
Most visible clouds are composed of ammonia.
Water vapor exists deep below and can sometimes be seen through clear spots in the clouds.
The planet’s “stripes” are dark belts and light zones created by strong
east to west winds in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere.
Dynamic storm systems rage on Jupiter on a daily basis.
The Great Red Spot which is about the size of the Earth has been observed for more than 300 years.
In recent years, three storms merged to form the Little Red Spot,
which is about half the size of the Great Red Spot.
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and also the second-largest in the solar system.
It is divided into 5 main regions:
a rocky core, ice, metallic hydrogen, molecular hydrogen, and an atmosphere.
Saturn's most famous feature is its prominent ring system of A and B rings,
which is composed mostly of ice particles, with a smaller amount of rocky debris and dust.
Saturn’s mass is about 5.6x10^26 kilograms with a gravitational pull of around 7.2m/s^2.
Like Jupiter, Saturn is also a gas giant composed of mainly hydrogen and helium.
Winds in the upper atmosphere reach 500 meters
or 1,600 feet per second in the equatorial region.
These super-fast winds, combined with heat rising from within the planet’s interior,
cause the yellow and gold bands visible in the atmosphere. Though Saturn’s magnetic
field is not as big as Jupiter’s, it is still 578 times as powerful as Earth’s.
The magnetosphere of Saturn contains the rings and most of Saturn’s moons along with the Planet.
Saturn has an orbital period of about 29 Earth years with a rotation period of
around 10.5 hours. Average temperature on Saturn is around –178 deg C or –288 deg F
since it is around 1426 million km from the Sun on average.
Saturn is known to have the most
moons in the solar system each with a variety of different conditions.
For instance, two of the moons orbit between the gaps in the main rings while others like
Prometheus and Pandora, interact with ring material guiding the ring in its orbit.
Some small moons are trapped in the same orbits as Tethys or Dione.
Janus and Epimetheus occasionally pass close to each other,
causing them to periodically exchange orbits.
Titan is the biggest moon found on Saturn and is known to have
features similar to Earth such as clouds, lakes,
mountains, dunes, and rivers with its atmosphere mainly composed of nitrogen with some methane.
And those are some of the features of our gas giants in our solar system!
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