Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun, and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass nearly 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined and slightly less than one-thousandth the mass of the Sun. The diameter of Jupiter is 11 times that of Earth and a tenth that of the Sun. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 5.20 AU (778.5 Gm), with an orbital period of 11.86 years. Jupiter is the third-brightest natural object in the Earth's night sky, after the Moon and Venus, and has been observed since prehistoric times. Its name derives from that of Jupiter, the chief deity of ancient Roman religion. Jupiter was the first of the Sun's planets to form, and its inward migration during the primordial phase of the Solar System affected much of the formation history of the other planets. Jupiter's atmosphere consists of 76% hydrogen and 24% helium by mass, with a denser interior. It contains traces of the elements carbon, oxygen, sulfur, neon, and compounds such as ammonia, water vapour, phosphine, hydrogen sulfide, and hydrocarbons. Jupiter's helium abundance is 80% of the Sun's, similar to Saturn's composition. The outer atmosphere is divided into a series of latitudinal bands, with turbulence and storms along their interacting boundaries; the most obvious result of this is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm that has been recorded since 1831. Because of Jupiter's rapid rotation rate, one turn in ten hours, the shape of the planet is an oblate spheroid; the radius to the equator is about 7% larger than the radius to its poles. Its internal structure is believed to consist of an outer mantle of fluid metallic hydrogen and a diffuse inner core of denser material. The ongoing...