Jupiter Essays - Moons Of Jupiter, Spacecraft, Jupiter,

Jupiter Jupiter contains 2/3 of the planetary mass of the solar system. Its interior pressure may reach 00 million times the surface pressure on earth. It has 16 moons, a ring system and an immense, complex atmosphere. Jupiter's distance from the sun is 778.3 million kilometers. Its period of revolution is 11.86 earth years or 1 Jovian year. The equatorial diameter is 143,200 kilometers. Jupiter's atmosphere's main components are hydrogen and Helium. The names of the 16 moons on Jupiter are Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea, Thebe, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callista, Leda, Himalia, Lysithea, Elara, Ananke, Carme, Pasiphae and Sinope. There is one ring around Jupiter which is composed of 3 bands which are dark and made of impact debris. Galileo discovered 4 of Jupiter's moons in 1610. The Pioneer 10 took cloudtops and moon images from 130,354 kilometers aaway in 1973. Pioneer 11 passed within 43,000 kilometers of Jupiter and took the first images of the polar regions in 1974. The Voyager 1 passed within 350,000 kilometers and discovered a faint ring and 3 more moons in 1979. In the same year, Voyager 2 passed within 650,000 kilometers and provided detailed imagery of the Jovian ring and Io volcanism. In 1989,Galileo spacecraft launched to arrive in Jupiter in 1995.