Jupiter - Next Planet - Back to Planet Walk
Hubble Tracks Jupiter Storms, Spacecraft: Hubble Space Telescope: Produced by: STScI
Jupiter
This picture of Jupiter is only nine times larger than the scale of this model. Courtesy NASA.
    Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun, 484 million miles from it. Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System, containing just under three quarters (71%) of all the known matter in the Solar System that is not in the Sun. Jupiter's mass is 2.09 x 1024 tons or 319 times as massive as the Earth. The diameter of Jupiter is 88,738 miles, 11 times that of the Earth. The volume of Jupiter is so huge that it could hold 1,400 Earths.

    Jupiter is the first Gas Giant planet we come to in the solar system. The Gas Giants are huge planets made of materials that we think of as gasses. The materials that compose Jupiter are mostly hydrogen (90%), and helium (10%), with tiny amounts of methane (0.7%), and some ammonia. When we look at a picture of Jupiter, we are seeing clouds in Jupiter's atmosphere. 
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