Diameter: 139,882 km
Mass: 317.8 Earths
Composition: Gas
Atmosphere: Hydrogen and helium
Surface Temperature: -108 °C
Year length: 11.86 Earth years
Day length: 10 hours
- Jupiter is the third brightest body in the night sky after the Moon and Venus.
- Jupiter has an immense mass two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined.
- With an altitude of up to 5000 km, Jupiters atmosphere is the largest in the Solar System.
- The famous great red spot that can be seen on most images of Jupiter is a persistant anticyclonic storm. This storm is larger than Earth and has been known since 1831, and possibly from as early as 1665.
- Jupiter has at least 66 moons. Ganymede, which is greater in diameter than mercury, is the largest.
- Jupiter is named after the Roman god of sky and thunder.
- Pioneer 10 conducted the first flyby mission in 1973.
- In 1995, the Galileo orbiter orbited the planet 7 times, releasing a probe which recorded data for almost an hour until it was crushed by Jupiters immense atmospheric pressure.