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The eight innermost regular moons, which have nearly circular orbits near the plane of Jupiter's equator, are thought to have formed alongside Jupiter, while the remainder are irregular moons and are thought to be captured asteroids or fragments of captured asteroids. The irregular moons within each group may have a common origin, perhaps as a ...
The sizes and masses of many of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are fairly well known due to numerous observations and interactions of the Galileo and Cassini orbiters; however, many of the moons with a radius less than ~100 km, such as Jupiter's Himalia, have far less certain masses. [5]
The Jupiter radius or Jovian radius (R J or R Jup) has a value of 71,492 km (44,423 mi), or 11.2 Earth radii (R 🜨) [2] (one Earth radius equals 0.08921 R J). The Jupiter radius is a unit of length used in astronomy to describe the radii of gas giants and some exoplanets. It is also used in describing brown dwarfs.
The equatorial circumference of a spheroid is measured around its equator and is given as: ... The planet Jupiter is a slight oblate spheroid with a flattening of 0. ...
Europa orbits Jupiter in roughly 3.55 days, with an orbital radius of about 670,900 km. With an orbital eccentricity of only 0.009, the orbit itself is nearly circular, and the orbital inclination relative to Jupiter's equatorial plane is small, at 0.470°. [40]
Ganymede, or Jupiter III, is the largest and most massive natural satellite of Jupiter, and in the Solar System. Despite being the only moon in the Solar System with a substantial magnetic field , it is the largest Solar System object without a substantial atmosphere.
The narrow and relatively thin main ring is the brightest part of Jupiter's ring system. Its outer edge is located at a radius of about 129,000 km (1.806 R J;R J = equatorial radius of Jupiter or 71,398 km) and coincides with the orbit of Jupiter's smallest inner satellite, Adrastea.
Jupiter was known to astronomers of ancient times. [1] The Romans named it after their god Jupiter . [ 2 ] When viewed from Earth , Jupiter can reach an apparent magnitude of −2.94, bright enough for its reflected light to cast shadows, [ 3 ] and making it on average the third-brightest object in the night sky after the Moon and Venus .