Jupiter Archives

September 10, 2020September 10, 2020 by Evan Gough

Jupiter Probably Has 600 Small, Irregular Moons

Europa, Callisto, and Io in front of Jupiter in January 2015. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

The better our technologies get, the better we get at finding objects in space. That’s certainly true of Jupiter and its moons. Prior to Galileo, nobody knew the other planets had moons. Then in 1609/10, as he made improvements to his telescope, he aimed it at the gas giant and eventually found four moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Now those four natural satellites also bear his name: the Galilean moons.

Over the centuries since then, and especially in our digital age, astronomical tools and methods kept improving. In particular, wide-field CCD (Charge Coupled Devices) have led to an explosion of astronomical discoveries. In recent years, the confirmed number of Jovian moons has risen to 79. Now, a new study says that there may be 600 small irregular moons orbiting Jupiter.

August 31, 2020August 31, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

Europa’s entire icy shell shifted 70-degrees a few million years ago

Images from NASA's Galileo spacecraft show the intricate detail of Europa's icy surface. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The mysterious world Europa, the ice-covered second moon of Jupiter, sports deep scars that cut across its face. An international team of investigators studied high-resolution maps of that surface to reveal a pattern: something shook Europa sometime within the past few million years, causing the entire shell to shift by 70 degrees.

August 12, 2020August 12, 2020 by Evan Gough

A Huge Ring-Like Structure on Ganymede Might be the Result of an Enormous Impact

Jupiter's moon Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System and may have an ocean sandwiched between two layers of ice. But how warm is that ocean? Image Credit: By National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8070396

Ganymede’s surface is a bit of a puzzle for planetary scientists. About two-thirds of its surface is covered in lighter terrain, while the remainder is darker. Both types of terrain are ancient, with the lighter portion being slightly younger. The two types of terrain are spread around the moon, and the darker terrain contains concurrent furrows.

For the most part, scientists think that the furrows were caused by tectonic activity, possibly related to tidal heating as the moon went through unstable orbital resonances in the past.

But a new study says that a massive impact might be responsible for all those furrows.

May 21, 2020May 22, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

Jupiter is so Big that our Solar System almost had two Suns

Europa and Io move across the face of Jupiter, with the Great Red Spot behind them. Image: NASA/JPL/Cassini, Kevin M. Gill

About half of all the star systems in the galaxy are made of pairs or triplets of stars. Our solar system features just one star, the Sun, and a host of (relatively) small planets. But it was almost not the case, and Jupiter got right on the edge of becoming the Sun’s smaller sibling.

Jupiter, the biggest planet in the solar system, is by far the largest. If you added up the masses of all the other planets, it wouldn’t even come to half of the mass of Jupiter. You could eliminate every single planet in the solar system except Jupiter, and you would basically still have…the solar system.

May 12, 2020May 12, 2020 by Evan Gough

Spacecraft and Ground Telescopes Work Together to Give us Stunning New Pictures of Jupiter

A Hubble Telescope image of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. A new effort is combining Hubble, Juno, and Gemini Observatory images in an effort to understand Jupiter's stormy behaviour. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and M.H. Wong (UC Berkeley) and team

It’s difficult to imagine the magnitude of storms on Jupiter. The gas giant’s most visible atmospheric feature, the Great Red Spot, may be getting smaller, but one hundred years ago, it was about 40,000 km (25,000 miles) in diameter, or three times Earth’s diameter.

Jupiter’s atmosphere also features thunderheads that are five times taller than Earth’s: a whopping 64 km (40 miles) from bottom to top. Its atmosphere is not entirely understood, though NASA’s Juno spacecraft is advancing our understanding. The planet may contain strange things like a layer of liquid metallic hydrogen.

Now a group of scientists are combining the power of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Gemini Observatory and the Juno spacecraft to probe Jupiter’s atmosphere, and the awe-inspiring storms that spawn there.

May 5, 2020May 5, 2020 by Evan Gough

Astronomers Find a Planet With Three Times the Mass of Jupiter

Astronomers have discovered the exoplanet Kepler-88 d, a planet three times more massive than Jupiter. Illustration Credit: W. M. KECK OBSERVATORY/ADAM MAKARENKO

Jupiter is the Boss.

Well, in terms of planets in our Solar System it is. It’s played a huge role in shaping the Solar System due to its mass and its gravity. Here’s a few ways it’s shaped our system:

January 16, 2020January 17, 2020 by Evan Gough

Another Beautiful Image of Jupiter from Juno During a Flyby. Great Work by Gerald Eichstadt and Sean Doran

A multitude of swirling clouds in Jupiter's dynamic North North Temperate Belt is captured in this image from NASA's Juno spacecraft. Appearing in the scene are several bright-white “pop-up” clouds as well as an anticyclonic storm, known as a white oval. This color-enhanced image was taken at 4:58 p.m. EDT on Oct. 29, 2018, as the spacecraft performed its 16th close flyby of Jupiter. At the time, Juno was about 4,400 miles from the planet's cloud tops, at a latitude of approximately 40 degrees north. Citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran created this image using data from the spacecraft's JunoCam imager. Image Credit: Enhanced image by Gerald Eichstädt and Sean Doran (CC BY-NC-SA) based on images provided courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

Confucius said, “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”

When it comes to Jupiter, Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran can certainly see it. And lucky for us, they have the skill to bring that beauty to the fore for the rest of us to enjoy.

October 30, 2019October 30, 2019 by Evan Gough

Clouds On Jupiter Rising Up Above the Surrounding Atmosphere

At center right, a patch of bright, high-altitude "pop-up" clouds rises above Jupiter's surrounding atmosphere. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstadt

Though it looks like it to us, Jupiter’s clouds do no form a flat surface. Some of its clouds rise up above the surrounding cloud tops. The two bright spots in the right center of this image are much higher than the surrounding clouds.

October 7, 2019October 7, 2019 by Matt Williams

Astronomers Find 20 – Yes 20 – New Moons for Saturn

A collage of Saturn (bottom left) and some of its moons: Titan, Enceladus, Dione, Rhea and Helene. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

The reign of Jupiter, named after the father of the Olympian gods, has been long and sweet. Aside from being the largest planet in the Solar System, it was this gas giant that demonstrated in the 17th century that planets other than Earth can support a system of moons. Between its size, powerful magnetic field, and system of 79 moons, Jupiter looked set to remain the king of the planets indefinitely.

But it looks like Saturn, named after the father of Jupiter in Greco-Roman mythology, might have just knocked Jupiter off that pedestal. Thanks to a team led by famed astronomer Scott S. Sheppard 20 new moons have been discovered orbiting Saturn. That brings the total number of Saturnian (or Cronian) satellites to 82, putting it ahead of Jupiter’s 79. And the best part? You can help name them!

October 3, 2019October 4, 2019 by Evan Gough

Juno is Afraid to Death of Jupiter’s Shadow. So it Fired its Thruster for Over 10 Hours to Avoid It.

Illustration of NASA's Juno spacecraft firing its main engine to slow down and go into orbit around Jupiter. Lockheed Martin built the Juno spacecraft for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Credit: NASA/Lockheed Martin

In a death-defying maneuver for the spacecraft, NASA’s Juno has completed an unprecedented and unplanned engine burn. The purpose? To save the spacecraft’s “life,” or at least the rest of its mission to Jupiter.

Jupiter casts a deep, dark shadow. Dark enough, in fact, to effectively kill Juno if it flies through it. Rather than let the spacecraft spend 12 battery-draining hours in Jupiter’s shadow, and then attempt a risky resuscitation on the other side, NASA took another course of action: a 10.5 hour burn of Juno’s reaction thrusters that will steer it clear of Jupiter’s life-draining shadow.

via Gfycat