Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a giant planet with a mass one-thousandth that of the Sun, but two-and-a-half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined. Jupiter is a gas giants and has been known to astronomers since antiquity.
When viewed from Earth, Jupiter can reach an apparent magnitude of −2.94, bright enough for its reflected light to cast shadows and making it on average the third-brightest natural object in the night sky after the Moon and Venus.
Jupiter is surrounded by 79 known moons. Scientists are most interested in the Galilean satellites – the four largest moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Jupiter also has several rings, but unlike the famous rings of Saturn, Jupiter’s rings are very faint and made of dust, not ice.
Jupiter is named for the king of the ancient Roman gods.
With a radius of 43,440.7 miles (69,911 kilometers), Jupiter is 11 times wider than Earth. If Earth were the size of a 2p piece, Jupiter would be about as big as a basketball.
From an average distance of 484 million miles (778 million kilometers), Jupiter is 5.2 astronomical units away from the Sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes Sunlight 43 minutes to travel from the Sun to Jupiter.
Jupiter has the shortest day in the solar system. One day on Jupiter lasts only about 10 hours.