Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. The sheer size of Jupiter is something
that’s hard for any one of us to even comprehend, and its ecosystem is so powerful that it directly
affects us here on Earth:
Before we get into the strange nitty-gritties of Jupiter, it’s first important to get
an idea of how massive Jupiter is when compared to the Earth. Jupiter is 318 times as massive
as the Earth. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot alone, which is an active storm that’s present
in a very small part of Jupiter, is actually bigger than the earth itself. Due to the sheer
size of Jupiter, it has a much stronger gravitational pull than the earth does, and that means it
also has an outsized pull on our planet. When the influence of Jupiter’s pull on our planet
is stronger, we usually face hotter summers, colder winters, droughts are more extreme
and rain is heavier. To put it short, every usual climate pattern is much more extreme
when the Earth is directly being influenced by Jupiter.
Another thing to note is that without Jupiter, the world would be a much more dangerous and
unstable place. We’ve already mentioned Jupiter’s strong gravitational pull due
to its size, and it’s exactly that pull that prevents so much space junk from crashing
directly into the Earth as well. Without Jupiter, we would regularly have comets and asteroids
zooming towards the earth at intense speeds, ready to cause a wave of destruction, but
with Jupiter, many of these comets and asteroids end up either crashing into Jupiter, one of
its many moons, or just have their path towards the Earth diverted completely. Some scientists
go as far as to say the earth wouldn’t even be habitable if Jupiter didn’t protect us
to such an extent. But there are detractors from this narrative, though. Some scientists
believe that as much as Jupiter does prevent some of the closer comets from hitting the
earth, it might also bring some far-away comets closer to the earth, pulling them closer due
to its gravitational pull. When you add the effects of both together, it’s also likely
that the overall impact that Jupiter protects us from is minimal at best, at least according
to these few scientists. The overall consensus is that Jupiter forms a vital part of the
Earth’s natural defences, and we’ll know more about this as our ability to conduct
research on this matter improves in the future. Jupiter might be worse for some of the inner
planets though, as, according to NASA, it often sends destructive objects straight towards
some of these inner planets. Thankfully, there’s no life (that we know of) on these planets,
so we don’t have to worry too much about the destruction that it causes there.
Now, despite being a planet just like earth, Jupiter is more different from the earth than
you can imagine. As you already know, Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system,
the size of it is absolutely astronomical. It’s about 139,820 kilometers in diameter,
in comparison, the Earth is just 12,742 kilometers in diameter. Its size isn’t the only thing
that differentiates itself from the Earth, as, unlike our diverse blue planet that’s
made up of land and ocean, Jupiter is made up entirely of different gasses, which means
there’s no solid surface on the planet. This puts it in the category of a “Gas Giant'',
since it’s made up mostly of hydrogen and helium. That doesn’t mean Jupiter can’t
have an ocean though, as, apparently, the single largest ocean in our entire solar system
is actually located in Jupiter. It’s very different from the Earth’s ocean, which
is made of H2O, Jupiter’s ocean is entirely comprised of liquid metallic hydrogen, and
this is not something you wanna go for a swim in. The depth of Jupiter’s ocean is estimated
at being about 25,000 miles deep, in comparison, the deepest point in the Earth’s ocean is
only about 6.8 miles deep.
This deep ocean of liquid metallic hydrogen is important to understand how Jupiter might
affect the earth in another way. Liquid metal hydrogen is a great conductor of electric
and thermal energy. What this means is that, when coupled with Jupiter’s extremely fast
day-night cycle lasting just about 10 hours, the ocean turns Jupiter into, effectively,
a massive power generator. It’s estimated that Jupiter produces about 10 million amps
of electricity at least, which lights up Jupiter’s poles and gives Jupiter many other glow-y
features all around it. As a result, Jupiter has massive auroras that shine brighter than
anything we’ve ever seen on Earth. This light might actually even make its way to
the earth, so if you notice an extra bright night sky, it might just be due to Jupiter.
Jupiter’s huge size also means it has a lot of different moons. Jupiter has about
79 moons, which, a few years ago, would’ve put Jupiter at the top of the list for planets
with most moons, but in recent years Saturn has officially overtaken Jupiter for that
title. But that doesn’t mean Jupiter’s moons are any less impressive than Saturn’s
not by the slightest. Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, is also the largest moon in
our solar system. It’s only fitting that the largest planet would also have the largest
moon, but to put it into perspective, Ganymede is about 5,268 kilometers in diameter, which
is huge by any means. It’s about 26% larger than Mercury, an actual planet. It’s also
about one-third the size of the Earth itself. It’s the only moon in the entire solar system
that actually has its own magnetic field, since it’s planet-sized anyways.
Ganymede isn’t the only moon of note though, there are also other moons such as Europa,
and Io. Although there are many other moons among them, these are considered the “big
three” moons of Jupiter. There are 79 “confirmed” moons of Jupiter, but there might be even
more moons that we haven’t discovered yet. Which brings into question, why don’t we
know more about Jupiter’s moons, and Jupiter in general, and what is the future for Jupiter
exploration?
Currently, the Juno space probe is orbiting Jupiter as we speak. The Juno spacecraft was
launched in August of 2011, and it finally reached its closest point to Jupiter in 2013.
Since then, it has been orbiting Jupiter and capturing incredible images of Jupiter every
day, without which, this video and many others like this wouldn’t even be possible. The
Juno mission was set to last 7 years before the spacecraft would intentionally be absorbed
into Jupiter’s atmosphere, but so far, it has been almost 10 years with no signs of
the spacecraft being absorbed into Jupiter any time soon. Once it does get absorbed,
we can expect some more incredible information to arise out of our solar system’s largest
planet.
Juno was only the second spacecraft to successfully orbit the planet, the first one was the nuclear-powered
Galileo spacecraft. Galileo was initially launched from the earth in 1989, and didn’t
reach Jupiter until 1995, anything before that is considered its “planning stage”.
Galileo is probably the spacecraft that taught us the most about Jupiter, and it continues
to be an example of a scientific marvel that helped us in space exploration.
So what does the future for Jupiter’s exploration hold? As far as the ESA goes, it’s set to
launch the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer, otherwise known as JUICE, in 2022. JUICE will make important
flybys around many moons of Jupiter, namely Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa respectively,
and after that, it will start to orbit Ganymede, which, as we’ve mentioned, is the largest
moon in our solar system. Along the way, JUICE is expected to make some other remarkable
discoveries as well, and it’s set to be the first satellite to start making an orbit
around another planet’s moon. According to the ESA website, the primary goals of the
mission are “characterization of the ocean layers and detection of putative subsurface
water reservoirs; topographical, geological and compositional mapping of the surface;
study of the physical properties of the icy crusts; characterization of the internal mass
distribution, dynamics and evolution of the interiors; investigation of the exosphere;
and study of Ganymede's intrinsic magnetic field and its interactions with the Jovian
magnetosphere.” The website also mentions that “For Europa, the focus is on the chemistry
essential to life, including organic molecules, and on understanding the formation of surface
features and the composition of the non-water-ice material”.
NASA is also expected to send another spacecraft to Jupiter with the Europa Clipper. This spacecraft
will be able to get very close flybys of Jupiter, as well as of one of its moons, Europa. Its
main goal is to study the habitability of the moon. It’s set to launch in 2023.
That’s a wrap for this video! If you enjoyed it, make sure to leave it a like and subscribe
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