What´s Out There? The Planet Jupiter

1129 Words3 Pages

Have you ever looked up into the night skies and wondered what might be out there? One question I always wonder is where in the universe might there be a livable planet? Well the answer might be closer than you think, well actually 588 million kilometers away from earth. Jupiter of course is what I’m talking about. Fell first let’s ask the why we might move. Let’s face it earth is not going to be able to be habitable forever in fact ate the rate humans are polluting the atmosphere earth won’t be around that much longer. So might need a new place to live. So could the answer be Jupiter? Before that we need to know a little about the new planet and if it’s able to sustain life. Let’s start with the Jupiter’s history. Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Jupiter was named after the king of the gods and Roman mythology. The ancient Greeks named the planet after Zeus, the king of the Greek pantheon. In 1610, a man that goes by the name “Galileo Galilei” was looking through his homemade telescope when he came across Jupiter. He notice four objects circling Jupiter and described them as "four fixed stars, totally invisible by their smallness" it was there were he discovered four large moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, which underwent several name change but are now known as the Galilean moons. This was the first time celestial bodies were seen circling an object other then Earth. Jupiter spins faster than any other planet, taking 10 hours to complete a turn on its axis, compared to that of 24 hours for Earth. This rapid spin makes Jupiter bulge at the equator and flatten at the poles, making the planet about 7 percent wider at the equator than at the poles. This is Jupiter and this is Jupiter next to the earth. Jup...

... middle of paper ...

... a bear to protect her from his wife Hera's jealousy. Later, Zeus placed Callisto and their son in the sky, and mother and son became Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Callisto is the third largest moon in the solar system and is almost the size of Mercury. Its interior is similar to Ganymede except the inner rocky core is smaller, and this core is surrounded by a large icy mantle. Callisto's surface is the darkest of the four major moons, but it is twice as bright as our own Moon. It is thought to be a long dead world. Callisto is about 4 billion years old and has the oldest landscape in the solar system. Although Jupiter is not the best place to land or live it does hold a moon that could be habitual. Europa and Ganymede are two of the best places to try to colonize although we could harm the organisms there if there are any. Either way Jupiter is not a planet to live in.

More about What´s Out There? The Planet Jupiter

Open Document