![]() ![]() The more massive the core, the smaller the planet in size. Many extrasolar hot Jupiters would be larger than Jupiter in diameter due to the intense heat of their star, but it all depends on Core Mass. Saturn has a much weaker gravitational pull and with more heat, both planets would have been more bloated. As another symptom of this process, the planet shrinks at the rate of a few millimeters each year, Jupiter though, when it was younger and hotter was much larger than it was today, though Saturn would have been ever bigger than Jupiter due to its lower mass. This additional heat radiation is produced by the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism. In light of this, it is also interesting to note that it radiates more heat than it receives from the Sun. This has led some astronomers to term it a "failed star", although Jupiter would need to be about seventy-five times as large to become a star, the smallest red dwarf is only about 30% larger than Jupiter. Jupiter is thought to have about as large a diameter as a planet of its composition can adding extra mass would result in further gravitational compression, in theory leading to stellar ignition. Currently, if an object is above 12 Jupiter masses, large enough to burn deuterium, it is considered a brown dwarf below that mass, it is a planet. There is no clear-cut definition of what distinguishes a large planet such as Jupiter from a brown dwarf, although the latter possesses rather specific spectral lines. Some describe Jupiter as the solar system's vacuum cleaner, due to its immense gravity well.Īs impressive as Jupiter's mass is, extrasolar planets have been discovered with much greater masses. Some have described the solar system as consisting of the Sun, Jupiter, and assorted debris. Quite naturally, Jupiter's gravitational influence has dominated the evolution of the solar system: most planets' orbits lie closer to Jupiter's orbital plane than the Sun's equatorial plane ( Mercury is the only planet which is closer to the Sun's equator in orbital tilt), the majority of short-period comets belong to Jupiter's family (a result due to both Jupiter's mass and its relative speed), the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt are mostly due to Jupiter, and Jupiter is even thought to have been possibly responsible for the late heavy bombardment of the inner solar system's history. It is 318 times more massive than Earth, with a diameter 11 times that of Earth, and a volume 1300 times that of Earth. Jupiter is 2.5 times more massive than all the other planets combined, so massive that its barycenter with the Sun actually lies above the Sun's surface (1.068 solar radii from the Sun's center). ![]() Jupiter is usually the fourth brightest object in the sky (after the Sun, the Moon and Venus) however at times Mars appears brighter than Jupiter.Īpproximate size comparison of Earth, Jupiter, and the Great Red Spot ![]()
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