Lesson Five: Jupiter 

• One of the "gas giants" 
• Jupiter is primarily composed of gaseous or not-solid materials.
• Most of the asteroids in our solar system are found in the Asteroid Belt (1.1 and 1.9 million larger asteroids and millions of smaller ones) 
• Asteroid belt said to be formed- beginning of our solar system.
• Jupiter exists because of the gravitational force. 
• Asteroids are also known as "minor planets" and "planetoids". 
• Asteroids are left overs, composed of what was left during the formation of the solar system (various rocks and mineral formations).
•  Asteroids have no atmosphere of their own and can get as large as 580 miles in diameter! 
• Are they not in the Asteroid Belt? They can be found in the orbital path between Earth and Mars!
• They are called Near-Earth Asteroids (as they are near Earth..hence the name). 
• They divided into three groups: Apollos, Amors and Atens. 
• Asteroids are most commonly confused with comets. 
• Comets consist of frozen water, dust particles and things like methane and carbon dioxide. 
• Meteoroids are smaller pieces of space debris such as metal and rock, on average--half a mile in diameter. Once they enter the Earth's atmosphere, they are known as meteors (though they usually burn away by this point!).
• Jupiter: Jupiter is named for the Roman god of the sky and thunder, king of the gods. 
• It is about 5.2 AU from the sun. 
• Jupiter is the fourth brightest objet in our sky and the largest planet! (Think how big the Earth is to us, now imagine Jupiter!) 
• Estimated to be 2.5 times the mass of anything else in our universe..Except the Sun of course! 
• Core (probably) consists of liquid metallic hydrogen covered rock. 
• Atmosphere consists of 90% hydrogen and 10% helium with traces of water, ammonia, and methane. 
• During observation, one can see "bands" around the planet. 
• Dark brown belts represent low pressure systems while white lighter and white belts are high pressure. 
• It also has a large red spot. Which is a high-pressure storm (like a hurricane) which has been occurring for over 600 years! 
• Jupiter is one of the fastest moving in our solar system. 
• One day can be ten hours.
• One orbit around the sun takes every 11.86 years. 
• Jupiter has 67 known moons. 
• Four of it's moons are AKA the famous Galilean Moons. 
• A mathematician discovered these moons in the year 1610. These four moons are known as the following: Callisto, Europa, Ganymede and Io. 
• First discovery of motion that did not seem to be geocentric (centered around the Earth).
  
• Pioneer 10 visited the planet in 1973, and was the first to record these rings. 
• There have been 8 other spacecraft that have passed Jupiter. The most recent is New Horizons (a NASA space probe that will be exploring the outer reaches of our solar system)!