Jupiter owns our solar system.

[dustinzgirl]

No, really it does. I watched this uber cool show on the history channel last night, and just thought I'd share some interesting facts...

The red eye of jupiter could comfortable fit 10 earths. And its a gigantic storm with a very calm center. Jupiter is constantly creating new storms and these combine into huge storms. Jupiter's winds move at an average of 350 mph, Earth's fastest wind was recorded at about 170 mph.

Jupiter also has a north and south pole Auror Borealis, but its about 1200 miles long. HubbleSite - NewsCenter - Hubble Follows Rapid Changes in Jupiter's Aurora (10/17/1996) - Introduction

Jupiter's magnetic field would squish Earth. The magnetosphere is just insane. The Magnetic Field of Jupiter
Jupiter's radiation field stretches all the way to earth. Its freaking huge. [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]The events shed new light on Jupiter'smagnetosphere, now said to be 20 times wider than the Sun and stretching outseveral times the distance from Earth to the Sun. It's [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica] electrons packing 50 million electron volts (MeV) of energy and travelling at 99 percent thespeed of light. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/jupiter_wild_020227.html[/FONT]

Jupiter communicates with earth all the time. If you are driving down a desert highway you may have interference on your AM radio---From JUPITER! How cool is that? Radio Storms on Jupiter

Now, according to the show I watched basically explained that Jupiter may have originated in the same manner as our Sun, but instead of becoming a star it collapsed under its own gravity and became a planet. Interestingly enough, with the amount of moons, the asteroid belt, gravity, magnetic field and amount of variant gasses (and water), some scientists believe Jupiter is more akin to a mineature solar system neighborhood than a planetary system.

Most interesting of the show was Jupiter's moon Europa. Europa Fact Sheet

Right now some very smart people are inventing a robotic system of three robots--one to carry the other two robots to the moon, one robot to land on Europa and in a two stage event dig a big huge hole in the ice, and a third robot to go down inside and take samples of life. Why life? Europa is a big fatty sheet of ice covering tons and tons of water. It is all ice and water, with a (possibly) heated core which is exactly how we suppose life on earth exists. Therefore, since the basics of life are water, heat, and carbon material, it is highly likely that life exists on Europa. These scientist think it would be very primordial life, but I'm shooting for a race of super smart dolphins.



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[tangaloomababe]

Super smart dolphins hey.... Its amazing the stuff they can work out, of course it is all guesswork until they actually get there and bring back some hard facts but its all good. I didnt know that that the space probe "galielo" had been named after Galielo who discovered Europa. I hadnt put two and two together, silly me.
Thanks dustinzgirl its all very interesting.

 

[The Ace]

Europa could be very interesting, the rest is old news though.

 

[dustinzgirl]

Europa could be very interesting, the rest is old news though.

Not to EVERYBODY!

 

[Quokka]

Europa's icy waters, Titan has its atmosphere and lakes of hydrocarbon, (baring Earth, the only surface bodies of liquids so far known), Pluto is a binary system with Charon (not sure if its offically binary or just acts like one) and of course Io which is basically just a giant stress ball .

And that's just for starters, the moons of our solar system have turned out to be at least as interesting as the planets.

All credit to Jupiter though, isn't it a bit like a 'blocker' in American Football? Its gravity is so huge that it has saved the Earth from who knows how many collisions?

 

[Talysia]

That's a fascinating post, Dustinzgirl. I always wondered about Jupiter's moons, especially Europa.

 

[areader]

Er, yes, thankful for Jupiter and it being a 'blocker'.

 

[Quokka]

Ok not the most elegent of descriptions I know but I'm sure I've read that, in looking for life or conditions that could support life. The presence of a gas giant or Jovian planet in the solar system would significantly improve the chances of life having formed/survived on another planet.

Of course that's just life, or the conditions for life, as we know them from earth.

 

[Corona]

Hey! I watched that show too . it is still not known if Europa has any liquid water on its moons however, just speculation at this point. The best evidence there is for liquid water is the fact that Europa does have an induced magnetic field around it (which indicates that there is some liquid beneath the surface), and also very few craters at its surface, but that could be any cause. oh, and the mission that you are referring to is this one, I think: NASA's Solar System Exploration: Missions: By Year: 2010+: Europa Geophysical Explorer right now, its on the drawing board, but I'm pretty sure that they will follow this one through. later on, once they determine if there is liquid water beneath its surface, they will send the probes. fascinating stuff it is!