Talk:Jupiter/Archive 1

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Overview Image

The overview image is not accurate at all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jupiter-Earth-Spot_comparison.jpg You can visually tell it would take more than 10 or 11 of those Earths to make the diameter of Jupiter. I re-created the image from the same two source images, and I uploaded it, but I am unsure of how to replace this image. I am unsure how to maintain the same copyright information. Anyone willing to help? JasonAD 17:39, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Classification of Jupiter's moons

The section with the above title is out of date as it doesn't refer to the many new moons discovered in the last ten years. I'm not sure if the simple division of four groups is still tenable. Someone who knows a bit more about the subject should check this section and correct it. The Singing Badger 21:25, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think there's another problem about the moons on Jupiter. From the second sentence of the article: "In 2005, Mr.Kelimarchus discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter using a telescope, the first observation of moons other than Earth's."

Who is Mr. Kelimarchus, and was he seriously the first one to discover the moons (in 2005, no less?) Riddlefox 18:24, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Was vandalism, been reverted. Femto 18:34, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Extra paramaters

I think we should add two more parameters to the standardized table of data under "Orbital Data." In order to nail down planets' orbits in space completely, we need the perigee right ascension, and the ascending node right ascension. Then, the data can be used to obtain the EXACT orbit to within known precision in 3D space. This could be useful in generating 3D solar system simulations, or detailed starmaps. Where do I go to present this idea? Edsanville 23:14, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The article orbit explains about those missing parametres (argument of periapsis and longitude of the ascending node). They've also been left out of the asteroid entries, mostly because they don't mean much to the casual reader. If we were to put them in, we'd need to do that with the moons too, which is a pain to look up. Personally, I think we'd also need to give the celestial coordinates of each planet's pole --but where can one find these data?

Urhixidur 03:55, 2004 Aug 23 (UTC)

I personally think it would be nice to include all of these data, even for the moons. I know it probably doesn't mean much to the average visitor, but this should be a comprehensive encyclopedia, in my opinion. I actually came here to find enough data to plot the orbits of all the planets and their moons in 3d using OpenGL. Most books don't include this information, but some do. I always preferred the books that gave me all the data, instead of hiding some because the authors assumed I wouldn't be interested... Anyways, I'm sure I can find the data for the planets and moons. I'd love to put them on here as long as there's a consensus about it.

Edsanville 19:19, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If you do wind up adding that information, please stop by Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical Objects and update to make everything nice and consistent. :) Bryan 00:11, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I Just Read Thats Its Now 62 Satellites, But Only 28 Of Those Are Over 1000 KM In Diameter, And 12 Of Those Have Yet To Be Named!

39! Saterlites!? Is that correct.

Check the paragraph right before the table listing Jupiter moons; a whole bunch of tiny moons only a kilometer or two in diameter were recently discovered. BTW, sorry I overwrote your 16 moon entry without comment, I was filling out the whole table at the time and ran into an edit conflict. Didn't know you'd put that in there until after I'd already nuked it.

Anyway, I guess a case can be made for either 16 or 39. There has to be a size cutoff at some point, otherwise Jupiter's ring particles would count as moons and that would just be silly. But since the new tiny moons have been classified as moons as far as I'm aware, 39 seems appropriate to me. Bryan 18:17 Sep 22, 2002 (UTC)

Well I suppose anything that is scientifilcy agreed on as a satelite shoudl be added. - fonzy

huh?

The following line doesn't seem to make any sense:

It has been known since prehistoric times.

How is it possible to know what humans knew before recorded history? If they didn't write it down, it's not there for us to read!

As far back as historical records go, Jupiter has been recorded as being known. Therefore, it makes sense that it msut have been known before records began.

Another oddity: "Jupiter has a very large and powerful magnetosphere. In fact, if you could see Jupiter's magnetic field from Earth, it would appear five times as large as the full moon in the sky despite being so much farther away." What does it mean? Magnetic fields aren't blobs in the sky - how can you talk about how big they would be 'if you could see them'? Theres just 1 magnetic field and it's everywhere!! This comment seems to make no sense!

I don't get that one either. Where does Jupiter's magnetic field end? Where other magnetic fields drown it out? --Doradus 19:33, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

The magnetosphere defines the space within which the magnetic field generated by the planet dominates over that carried by the Solar Wind, known as the Interplanetary Magnetic Field. Magnetospheres protect planets against the Solar wind and can be measured. Satellites such as Cluster around Earth and Cassini around Saturn carry magnetometres which can measure the changes in field strength. Look at related articles on wiki about all this stuff. Other magnetic fields drown out Jupiter's at the Magnetopause. The magentosphere looks a bit like a windsock, with a tail extending away from the sun like the ion tail of a comet. --MilleauRekiir 21:51, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Switched category

I switched the category from Jupiter back to Planets. This is one of those confusing thing about the way categories are supposed to work. The idea is, Jupiter is a planet; Jupiter is not a Jupiter. See Wikipedia talk:Categorization for details. Quadell (talk) 00:42, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Articles_that_have_their_own_categories seems to suggest that Jupiter really should belong to the category Jupiter. "Category:Jupiter" doesn't mean "these things are all Jupiters", if it did then it would be silly to have the Great Red Spot or Jupiter's moons categorized under there (and now that I think of it, in that case the only thing that would fit in that category would be Jupiter itself). What it means is "these things are on the subject of Jupiter, or closely related to Jupiter." (edit: Oh, and I should also point out that "Planets" is not a subcategory of "Solar system", so you can no longer get to Jupiter by following the Solar system heirarchy). Bryan 00:52, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

That's because planets are not solar systems. Categories should be plural, e.g. places on Jupiter, things relating to Jupiter, etc. Check out Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#More_sophisticated_relations. Here I quote GUllman:

We have to think from the encyclopedia user's point of view. He/she is starting at the top level of the hierarchy with a subject in mind, and they need to know which blind path to go down to find an article on that subject. It might help to think of the problem as a game of twenty questions. The first question we may ask is, "Is your subject a Category:Persons, Category:Places, or Category:Things?" If they choose Category:Persons, then ALL the articles from then on should be about persons. Why? Because we may someday be able to click a link to collapse the hierarchy, and display all the articles below that level in one alphabetical order. If they wanted to know about Stephen King's books, they might choose Category:Things, and have a choice of Category:Animals, Category:Vegetables, Category:Minerals, Category:Ideas, etc., and go down one of those paths. My point is, Categories link only as a hierarchy; Wikipedia articles link as a network to every related article.

Since categories are new, there's a lot of misunderstanding about them. Hopefully this will iron itself out soon. Quadell (talk) 03:38, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)

There are a lot of non-plural categories out there yet, however; Category:Medicine, Category:Biology, Category:Law, etc. In those cases the "Topics relating to -" prefix is implied, IMO. So Category:Jupiter is "Topics relating to Jupiter" and Category:Solar System is "Topics relating to the Solar system." It's too early yet to be making dogmatic statements about all categories, I think. Bryan 05:16, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Bryan --- one person's opinion on the Categorization talk page does not make a consensus. We had discussed a sensible ontology on Category Talk:Solar System and came up with a plan. If you'd like to re-open the discussion for Solar system categorization, we can do that, but I don't yet accept a pan-Wikipedia standardization argument. --- hike395 06:42, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I brought an expanded version of my thoughts up at the section of talk:Categorization linked above, suggesting that I thought the "Wikipedia way" should be to sit back and watch how categories get used for a while before trying to come up with standards about how they should be used. That'd probably be the best talk: page to go to for general discussion of these matters. Bryan 06:55, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Later: As an external data point, Looksmart [1] thinks that each planet deserves its own category underneath a solar system category. -- hike395

Category:Earth is going to be a doozy. :) Bryan 06:55, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Not really, just make it be the same as Category:Earth Sciences, and put all of Category:Geology,Category:Geography,Category:Biology underneath it, and presto! :-) -- hike395 07:14, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hm. Looks like this question of the nature of categorization has not yet been resolved. As I understand it, and I could be wrong, Wikipedia will soon implement a feature where you can see a category, and see everything under it at any level, in a tree structure similar to a directory structure. John Lennon is a member of people because Lennon is a member of British Musicians, is a member of Musicians, is a member of people. Jupiter's red spot is not a member of Planets, so it shouldn't be under any category that's under the category Planets.

So if I'm right about this, a user would say "I wonder what all interesting things are in the solar system," and would look in the category "Objects in the Solar System" or somesuch. Instead of having articles on Halley's comet and the Sun and Venus all together, they would be grouped in sub-cats. So the cat "objects in the Solar System" would have in it cat:Planets (which would include the article on Jupiter), cat:comets, cat:asteroids, and articles that don't belong in subcats (such as the Sun article.) If there was a category "Things relating to Jupiter" or "Places on Jupiter" (containing the article on the Red Spot), it wouldn't be related. If it were related, you would see the article Red Spot as a Planet.

I don't know if this is how categories will end up being used or not, but it's how I understand they were envisioned. Quadell (talk) 13:41, Jun 8, 2004 (UTC)

P.S. It would seem to make the most sense to me for the article Jupiter to include "see also: Category:Jupiter", but be itself in Category:Planets. Just my 2 cents.

I'm now leaning towards splitting the difference and having this article be both in category Jupiter and category Planets. The former because this article is about Jupiter, and the latter because the subject of this article is a planet. I removed the category Jupiter as a sub-category of Planets, since most of the articles below the Jupiter category are not actually planets. Basically, my interpretation of categories is headed in the direction of "categories with pluralized names are generally 'list of', whereas categories with singular names are generally 'articles about'." Not sure how commplace that interpretation is, though, so I'm holding off on any large-scale reorganizations of these articles yet. Bryan 01:24, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

PD info

I've taken some info from NASA's text at http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/jupiter.html --GeneralPatton 23:58, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Attribution of "Sun, Jupiter, and debris"

If we can identify the source of this remark, we should properly attribute it. I recall this quote coming from either Asimov or Clarke. I read it in a book by one of them, quoting the other. This page attributes it to Asimov, though I have no idea how reliable that is. --Doradus 17:54, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

My wife found one reference, in Clarke's 2061. However, I have never read that book... Perhaps I read Asimov quoting Clarke in one of his books. --Doradus 16:10, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

The quote is from Asimov's essay "By Jove!" (you can find it in the essay collections View From a Height and Asimov on Astronomy). The actual quote is "four planets, plus debris". --Johnny Pez 06:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Tidal force and orbit circularity of the moons

The article says that:

The tidal force from Jupiter, on the other hand, works to circularize their orbits.

Its not clear to me why this should be so, and the explanation in the article doesn't help me.

Here's an explanation by Henry Spencer: [2]. He assumes the moons are tidally locked. As I understant it, the crux of the argument is that the moons rotate at a constant rate, but in an elliptical orbit, they don't revolve at a constant rate. At periapsis, where the moon is moving the fastest, the tidal bulge nearest the planet leads the moon's center of mass in orbit, so the planet's pull on that bulge will have a tiny retrograde component that tends to slow the moon down. When you slow down a moon at periapsis, the effect is to lower the apoapsis. Eventually the periapsis and apoapsis are equal, and you have a circular orbit. --Doradus 16:33, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Jupiter in astrology?

I'm not sure if that should stay. As it currently stands, it is unsubstantiated. According to *which* astromancic tradition? Quote some sources (before 20th century, at least), otherwise it's gonna go...

Urhixidur 04:37, 2005 Jan 10 (UTC)

Atmosphere and counting atoms

The atmosphere section reads in part « Jupiter's atmosphere is composed of ~86% hydrogen and ~14% helium by number of atoms ». Sources? By number of molecules, that translates to ~75% H₂ and 25% He. And by mass we would have ~61-67% H and 39-33% He (depending on the isotopic ratio between He-3 and He-4). The figures in the next sentence do not match. Urhixidur 00:09, 2005 Mar 11 (UTC)

disambig?

I would think that Jupiter is a pretty clear case where the dominant usage is Jupiter (planet) and all other usages at the disambiguation page, Jupiter, are less common.

Hence, by convention shouldn't Jupiter point here and a link for other uses by placed at the top of this page? I.e. Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Types of disambiguation #3? For another example see Mars.

I can understand conflicts between Mercury (element) and Mercury (planet), but Jupiter (god) or any of the other terms can't be as influential as the planet itself. This comment probably also applies to Uranus and Pluto. Dragons flight 23:08, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

...and rest of the planets as well, especially with Saturn. --Jyril 00:10, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

I agree, for all planets. I think that a vast majority of the people who look up the names of any of the planets are looking for the planet and not any of the other articles of that same name. They should all go the planet's article and link to the disambiguation page. GamblinMonkey 03:48, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I, for one, think "Mercury" is equally likely to be the element. --Doradus 16:19, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Jupiter is now listed on Wikipedia:Requested moves. I think whatever happens here would set a precedent for every planet with the exception of Mercury.

Incidentally, does anyone know why it needs to be listed there? Isn't this a straightfoward move that we could do without administrator intervention? --Doradus 23:36, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the planet being at Jupiter, and with the comments above. Several of the other planets' disambiguation pages should probably be changed as well. It needs administrator intervention because Jupiter has a history. Non-administrators can only move pages if the target either doesn't exist, or is a redirect to the former location, without any history (e.g., created earlier by the reverse page move). — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:52, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

How about this:

1. Move Jupiter to Jupiter (disambiguation)
2. Delete automatically-generated redirect at Jupiter
3. Move Jupiter (planet) to Jupiter

I think this would preserve all histories. --Doradus 19:29, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, should the page move achieve consensus, that is how the move would be done. However, an administrator is needed to delete the redirect; non-administrators do not have the ability to delete articles (including redirects). — Knowledge Seeker দ 19:43, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, I took the liberty of editing your comment, P3d0—hope you don't mind. — Knowledge Seeker দ 20:19, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with the proposed move. The non-planet uses of "Jupiter", taken together, are less significant than the non-planet uses of "Mercury", but still significant enough that Jupiter should be the dab page. JamesMLane 09:48, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Weak support - I think this is only just acceptable a case for primary disambiguation. violet/riga (t) 16:53, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. violet/riga (t) 16:53, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

intro pic

The full disc image of the planet at the top of the page is a bit ....well.....sucky. The vidicon tubes of the 70's are simply not capable of showing the atmosphere in all its majetsy. I think this [3] image from cassini's ccd is jaw droppingly good ....but it's not a full disc. What do we think? Leave image as is, or replace?--Deglr6328 05:57, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Barycenter

I've never been thrilled with this statement:

Jupiter is ... so massive that its barycenter with the Sun actually lies above the Sun's surface

The distance of the barycenter is proportional to mass times distance, so it would be equally valid to say that Jupiter is so distant that its barycenter is above the Sun's surface. In other words, the barycenter's position is not the least bit significant in getting a feel for a planet's impact on the Sun. For instance, Mercury's barycenter would also be above the Sun's surface if Mercury were in the Oort cloud. --Doradus 16:17, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

I agree, the statement doesn't really seem relevant and certainly should not be in the 'Overview' section. 81.98.47.57 15:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

---

In the chart, first column, last row: should that be June or July? (says Jule) Everyking 06:57, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Odd statement

This statement seems out of place, especially the part after the semi colon which has nothing to do with Jupiter. I think it should be left to the reader to click on the Galileo link to find out more about Galileo. Thoughts? Jryden 16:24, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

It was a major point in favor of Copernicus' heliocentric theory of the motions of the planets; Galileo's outspoken support of the Copernican theory got him in trouble with the Inquisition.

Jupiters rotation

Do we know why jupiter spins so fast ?

The simple answer is "because it can". And that's not as facetious as it reads. If you start with a blob of matter (mostly hydrogen gas), it is bound to have some rotation, even if almost negligible (differential revolution about the galaxy's centre is bound to induce a slight rotation, for example). As the blob contracts, the rotation increases as rapidly as the radius shrinks. So what is unusual is when an object does not spin, such as Venus. Urhixidur 14:18, 2005 August 20 (UTC)

As for why it spins so much faster than the other planets, and than the sun, perhaps this is due to the enormous mass of planetesimals and debris that it's swept up, especially early on? This was a much larger amount than any other planet. The orbital momentum of all the impacting objects would have affected to Jupiter's rotation. But I would intuitively expect the effect to slow down Jupiter's rotation, since objects inside Jupiter's orbit would be moving faster than Jupiter but against its rotation, while those outside its orbit would be moving with its rotation, but slower than Jupiter; and objects hurtling in from the outer Solar system could strike either side of the planet and therefore should have no net effect. But by that same principal I'd expect the planets to rotate clockwise, so I'm obviously missing something. (Unless each planet formed from a small contracting nebula like the sun, and sped up as it contracted? But that's not the current model.) Maybe someone who knows what they're talking about can answer this 3-month-old question? kwami 23:46, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

No Mention / Link of Trojans on this page

Does that follow some particular philosphy, guideline, or practice ?

No, it's just an oversight. I've added a little summary and wikilink to Trojan asteroids. I don't think they're technically considered moons, but I don't think they deserve a whole section to themselves either. --Dhartung | Talk 20:29, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I put them in their own section for now because I don't think they belong with the moons. Maybe we need a section on 'Jupiter's gravitational effects on the solar system' to cover the Trojans as well as all the comets that get deflected by it? The Singing Badger 21:04, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

On second thought that's not so bad (I just hate articles with endlessly proliferating top-level sections, it usually speaks to poor organization). Since we know that Saturn and Earth have Trojans, now, it's almost like a separate standard category. --Dhartung | Talk 03:01, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Revising the sidereal period

I've just updated the sidereal period of Jupiter (and will shortly do the same to the remaining planets) to be consistent with the JPL data set. The change has also slighlty changed the orbital speed and synodic period entries, naturally.

First off, the value now in there (4,333.2867 d) is for the mean orbital elements. It was retro-computed from the well-established semi-major axis (and the JPL value for the AU), the JPL value for the solar GM product (avoiding the nastiness related to JPL's value for G being different from the most recent CODATA one, I think), and takes into account the Sun/Jupiter mass ratio. I used the JPL-supplied value for Jupiter's mass, which is slightly incoherent with JPL's value for the Sun/Jupiter-system ratio; such is life.

The "barycentric correction" is most prominent with Jupiter, as one would expect: $\omega ^{2}={\frac {GM}{R^{3}(1+m/M)^{2}}}={\frac {GM(1+m/M)}{a^{3}}}$ where $M$ is the Sun's mass and $m$ is the secondary's mass (in this case Jupiter). $\omega$ is, of course, the angular frequency. Note that the semi-major axis is for the heliocentric orbit.

The value reported for Jupiter's sidereal period by other sources (such as IMCCÉ, NSSDC, etc.) is 4332.589 d, still different from the JPL-computed 4333.287 d. Maybe the former value is for the instantaneous orbit at epoch?

Urhixidur 20:54, 11 October 2005 (UTC) Updated Urhixidur 14:41, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Quick Question

When astronimers are taking into account Jupiter's massive size, are they recording just the rocky center, or the hydrogen liquid/gasses that surround it as well? If they are including the liquids/gasses, would Jupiter still be considered so large if they were to only measure the rocky center? Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.81.182.9 (talk • contribs) 2005-11-07 00:09:46.

I'm sure the vast majority of calculations (for example, trying to put satellites in orbit around it) take into account both the solid core and the liquids and gasses. Jupiter would not be nearly as large (or massive) without its outer layers. —HorsePunchKid→龜 05:27, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Compared to the planet (318 Earth's mass), Jupiter's core is really tiny, maybe 15-20 Earth's mass -- if the core even exists! As HorsePunchKid implied, every layer of Jupiter is taken into account when its mass is measured.--Jyril 17:37, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I believe the radius and volume estimates are to the visible cloud tops (the "surface" you see in the Cassini images). kwami 08:31, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

The 'surface' of Jupiter for the sake of radii and other measurements is the point at which the atmospheric pressure falls to that on the surface of Earth, the 'one atmosphere' level where atmosphere is a measure of pressure --MilleauRekiir 21:57, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Romans' Name?

How did the Romans know that Jupiter was the largest planet, naming it after the king of their Gods?

--Bannus 14:08, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, you'd think it would be Venus. But I doubt they thought Jupiter was larger. Perhaps because it's the brightest regular planet? The Morning Star/Evening Star may be brighter, but isn't as constant, and it would have taken a while even to recognize that they're the same object. kwami 23:54, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I think it's because the slower planets seem older and more majestic. Hence, Saturn (the slowest known planet) was named after a titan, and titans are older than the Gods. Jupiter was naturally named after the king of the gods. Mars is red, evoking blood, hence the god of war. Venus is a natural "opposite" to Mars. Mercury orbits the fastest, so it's named after the super-fast messenger god. --Doradus 02:03, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

attracting orbital poles

There's a graphic with the caption that Jupiter is so massive, it's attracted the obital poles of the other planets to its own. Could someone elaborate on that? What would the mechanism be, tidal effects? How would that work?

Also, I attempted to answer the question on Jupiter's rotation above (from August), then realized that I don't know. Could someone give that another shot too? kwami 23:54, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I STRONGLY second this request. The image without explanation is virtually useless to the reader. I am tempted to remove it in its current state. --Deglr6328 08:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I threw together a stub at Orbital pole, perhaps that will be helpful in the future. Unless I got it all wrong, of course. :) Bryan 08:51, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Good, except that the picture now has no context at all. I'd asked Urhixidur if he could expand on the Jupiter article, and he did add a line or two, which did provide some context. kwami 09:50, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Are you referring to the image's useage at orbital pole? Your indentation is ambiguous. If so, I don't see what context is missing - the article describes what an orbital pole is, and provides an image showing the location of various planets' orbital poles on the celestial sphere. Bryan 21:23, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

(Not sure what you mean by "your indentation is ambiguous. How's that?)

Yeah, that's good. The convention is to indent your response one level more than the text you're responding to. Bryan 00:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The original article gave admittedly minimal coverage as to why the poles of the planets are clustered together. The current article merely displays the image. kwami 23:28, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Since I don't know any references confirming that that's why the poles cluster like that I didn't want to make the assertion myself. I don't see what's wrong with displaying the image without explaining why they came to be that way, it's still interesting to know where the planets' orbital poles are. The context is "this is what an orbital pole is" which seems adequate to me. Feel free to expand the article if you've got more to add, such as the Jupiter explanation. Bryan 00:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The use of the image as an example showing the locations of the planet's orbital poles is fine, yes. But the suggession that Jupiter is the cause of all the poles clustering as they do is, I suspect, nonsense. What could possibly be the mechanism?!! Also, don't orbits precess?? That fact if taken into consideration, would make the clustering a mere artefact of chance and timing.....--Deglr6328 01:39, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Red Spot first observed by Galileo?

A recent edit is which was first observed by Galileo four centuries years ago. Indeed, mathematical models suggest that the storm is a permanent feature of the planet. Jupiter is perpetually covered with a layer of clouds, and may not have any solid surface.. Is there a reference for this? I found only sources (NASA) attributing Hooke or Cassini as the first observer. Also I'd be very interested in the mathematical model that can suggest the spot is permanent, as this would surely depend on an unprecedented depth of knowledge of Jupiter's current state. -Wikibob 13:35, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I found some references to simulations here: http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/jupiter/redspot.html that states large disturbances may be stable on Jupiter, and that stronger disturbances tend to absorb weaker ones, and a laboratory simulation in Nature 331, 689 - 693 (25 February 1988) here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v331/n6158/abs/331689a0.html;jsessionid=EB6990ACE69E14E754FC2B2635B5301C and a computer simulation here: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/04/21_jupiter.shtml -Wikibob 13:50, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Looks like you've tracked it down. I think I actually read a more detailed version of it in Scientific American (I remember pics of the results), but I'd bet that's the same study in Nature. I haven't heard anything since, either confirmation or dismissal.

Sorry, I must've gotten the astronomer wrong. If we don't know whether it was Hooke or Cassini, we could still say it's been around for a good four centuries, which is worth putting in. kwami 14:09, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that the sources given above would justify including a statement that the GRS is "stable" or "very stable" or "persistent" or "very persistent" or "long-lived" or even "extremely long-lived". We may even be justified in saying that "some mathematical models suggest that the storm might be a permanent feature of the planet" (particularly if we list relevant references in the article). We could certainly state (as is usually done) that the GRS has been stable for at least hundreds of years. However, to say that models suggest that the GRS "is a permanent feature" (which to me implies a lifefime of billions of years) is a stronger statement than can be justified by any of the sources listed.--DannyZ 18:20, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Atmospheric Boundary

It states:

"There is no clear boundary or surface between these different phases of hydrogen; the conditions blend smoothly from gas to liquid as one descends."

I thought there was a boundary between liquid and gas, a revision of seceral websites which claim differently should e changed then (AKA www.arcadiastreet.com).

Problem

The "Io, Richard, Europa, and Ganymede" on the section on Jupiter's satellites is probably vandalism. I did not find Richard on the list of Jupiter's satellites. Rintrah 08:19, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Dear NASA

Dear NASA,

Why not send weather satellites to Jupiter? Then we could put them on TV, for a Jupiter Weather Channel akin to the current (Earth) Weather Channel. I'm sure lots of people would be interested to see up-to-the-minute pictures and video of Jupiter. oneismany 11:44, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Dear NASA,

Why not send orbiting telescopes to the outer planets? Currently our only way of measuring the parallax of nearby stars against the background of more distant stars is to measure their positions at one end of Earth's orbit, and then again on the other side of the Sun half a year later and about 2 AU away. But, with telescopes located at Jupiter, for example, we could measure the positions of stars from locations at least 4 AU apart, because that is the closest Earth will ever get to Jupiter. And we could make these measurements virtually instantaneously, instead of waiting for half a year! And Neptune is 30 AU from the Sun! We could turn our whole solar system into a giant interferometer! oneismany 12:54, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

And while we're at it, why don't we send weather satellites and surveillance satellites to all the other planets, so that anyone on Earth could conveniently watch our Solar siblings close-up? oneismany 12:54, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Eh the pressure whould crush them. The only thing that nasa whould do is send them to jupiter's 4 moons. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Planetfreak (talk • contribs) .

Planetfreak, please sign your messages with four tildes, like so: ~~~~. Thank you.

As for sending satellites to Jupiter, of course it could be done. Just make sure you keep them above the atmosphere, as Planetfreak was trying to say. This is not so much because they would be crushed, but because the friction from the atmosphere would pull them into a lower and lower orbit, and eventually they would be pulled beneath the clouds and fall out of radio contact. After that they would continually falling inwards due to friction.

So far I know we have sent satellites to at least Mars and Luna, and perhaps also Venus. The problem with sending a satellite to Jupiter is that there just isn't much of a purpose. All you would be able to do is take pictures of clouds, which change all the time. And the only reason people care about Earth weather is because it's Earth weather. If it didn't affect our daily life we wouldn't care nearly so much. Dust storms happen all the time on Mars and are picked up by our satellites there, but the only ones who care are the scientists. You're not going to get an average citizen interested enough in another planet's weather to want to watch some kind of a weather channel. The reason we've sent satellites to Mars and Luna is because they can take pictures of the solid surface (including craters) as well as perform useful tasks like search for water as a preparation for colonization plans. Jupiter, on the other hand, has no such interests; since it has no exterior surface it could never be colonized by humans. --Cyde Weys _vote^talk 18:22, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

What? There's no point in sending a satellite to extraterrestrial planets? Helloooo! How about measuring the distances to the stars and galaxies, the most fundamental task of astrophysics? Currently our best way of measuring the parallax of nearby stars against background stars is to measure at the perihelion and at the aphelion of Earth's orbit! But that's only a distance of 2 AU! So why should we only use Earth-orbiting telescopes? Jupiter, for example is 5 AU away from the Sun! The closest we could ever come to Juputer is 4 AU! With telescopes located at the planets, and the asteroids, we could vastly improve our ability to measure the distances to stars. I don't know if it would help to measure the distance to galaxies (would telescopes in the Oort cloud even be far enough to measure parallax for a nearby galaxy?), but hell, we can do better than 2 AU! oneismany 13:56, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

And anyway, who says people don't want to see the planets close up? We've been looking at them by telescopes and other means for thousands of years, but we don't want to see them close up? oneismany 13:56, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Please note that this page is here to discuss the Wikipedia article on Jupiter, not to discuss Jupiter in general. It's not a blog, and (interesting as it may be) it's not the place for an open letter to NASA. --Doradus 02:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

This should probably go to Wikipedia:unusual requests if it hasn't been sent there already. --Silver2195 15:39, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

For anyone reading the above. Cyde Weys, Nasa/JPL HAVE sent a satellite to Jupiter, it was called "Galello", and yes it took pictures of the clouds, as well as the satellites of Jupiter, and released a probe into the Jovian atmosphere. Oneismany, if we sent a telescope to the Oort Cloud's outer edge (100,000AU) we could certainly measure a parallax for the local group - but with present technology it would take of the order of 10,000 years to reach that position, and even then we couldn't slow it down to a stable orbit in that position! Not feesible at the moment. Regarding sending a telescope to the Jovian system, we would, at best, increase the parallax limit by a factor of 3. But you should look at the advances we've made. 20 years ago, the limit for parallax was about 100 parsecs (approx. 323 lightyears). But the Hyparchos satellite extended that to 1600 light years. The ESAs up coming Gaia mission should extend that to tens of thousands of light years. All at a fraction of the cost of sending a major orbiting observatory to Jupiter which would require a great deal of rocket power, and hence cost. That's the main reason why NASA hasn't done it, as the scientific return compared to the cost doesn't stack up, particularly when advances would allow earth orbiting observatories to achieve similar results.

List of occulted stars

I removed the huge table of (basically incomprehensible) numbers from the article. It is a highly specialized dataset in which only a very few readers could have an interest (certainly none of the casual ones). Wikipedia isn't just an infodump. —ZorkFox 03:07, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Certainly it doesn't belong to an encyclopedic article. However, occultation data is valuable information and I recommend adding it to the Wikisource.--Jyril 11:00, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

nice.

very informational.knew nothing about people calling jupiter "wood star "[space.com].

-reader

Other gas giants assorted debris?

--From the intro "some have described the solar system as consisting of the Sun, Jupiter, and assorted debris". Does this really make any sense? Saturn is 9.5 times the size of earth, while Jupiter is 11.2, hardly debris by comparison. I think this statement gives the wrong impression about the relative sizes of the planets. Just my two cents... --Jleon 20:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the problem comes from your use of the word "size" which is ambiguous in this case. True, Jupiter's diameter is 11.2 times that of Earth, but it's mass is 1,321.3 times that of Earth. The descriptions of the other planets as debris is perhaps in the nature of hyperbole, but I find it an amusing paraphrasing of what is possibly the best-known work of fiction focusing on Jupiter (that is, 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequels), and as such find it rather appropriate. —ZorkFox 04:51, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

The quote is from Asimov's essay "By Jove!", which can be found in the collections View From a Height and Asimov on Astronomy. The actual quote is "four planets, plus debris". --Johnny Pez 06:32, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Vedic Astrology?

Is it really necessary to introduce Vedic Astrology into this article? --DannyZ 07:27, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Is there a reason not to? --Doradus 17:00, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

No and yes. Having a short mention in the Historical observations section is only balanced. Anything beyond that should go into Jupiter in astrology from the See also section. Femto 17:49, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Disputed (Jupiter and Internet conspiracists)

The article states, "On October 19, 2003 a black spot was photographed on Jupiter by Belgian astronomer Olivier Meeckers [4]. Although not an unusual occurrence, this one caught the fancy of some science fiction fans and conspiracy theorists, who went as far as speculating that the spot was evidence of nuclear activity on Jupiter, caused by Galileo's plunge into the planet a month prior [5]. Galileo carried about 15.6 kg [6] of plutonium-238 as its power source, in the form of 144 pellets of plutonium dioxide, a ceramic [7] [8]. The individual pellets (which would be expected to separate during entry) initially contained about 108 grams of ²³⁸Pu each (about 10% would have decayed away by the time Galileo entered Jupiter), and are short of the required critical mass by a factor of about 100 [9]." I think this section should be removed, or at least say that these claims are immpossible, because plutonium 238 cannot be used as a nuclear explosive [10] (it is nonfissile, unlike the isotope use in nuclear weapons, which is plutonium 239. The isotope used is very important). Therefore, the plutonium powered RTG cannot have caused a nuclear explosion, unless plutonium 239 was added, which is extermely unlikely. Polonium 21:34, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

More accuratly, plutonium 238 is not prompt critical. That is, under the correct conditions, it can form a critical mass. [11] However, the crital mass formed cannot explode, as it is not prompt crtical (due to the fact that delayed neutrons are essential for sustaining the chain reaction), so it cannot explode. Also, plutonium 238 exhibits SF sometimes, and has other nuclear properties to prevent a nuclear explosion. Therefore, the ²³⁸Pu could not have cause a nuclear explosion ( see [12]). Polonium 01:18, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Who decided this is even notable enough to be mentioned? Is there just one web site on this? Awolf002 02:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, I'd leave it in there. I think it's silly too, but it's something that happened, the section is right next to Jupiter in Pop Culture, and if we get a critical mass of this sort of stuff (pardon the pun), we can shift it all into its own series of articles and categories, like Astronomical conspiracy theories, Internet conspiracy theories, etc.

We could then briefly mention it like:

"Galileo plunged into the upper atomosphere ... no more signal ... a month later a spot appeared, but this happens all the time on Juptier ... there were some conspiracy theories [link to conspiracy article]".

-- JamesHoadley 15:41, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The section should be removed. It refers to a fringe group, and putting this section into an article about a very well known planet makes it sound mainstream and is advertising for this fringe group. Polonium 20:54, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Red, Jr.

Jupiter now has two red spots. See this. — Hurricane Devon ( Talk ) 18:03, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Now? Oval BA first appeared in march 2000...

jupiter symbol appearing way below page

why is the jupiter symbol appearing way below the end of the page for me? the same effect can be seen on each of jupiter's moon's pages (that i checked, anyway), such as Adrastea (moon) - in fact, on that page, the the link to the image mysteriously isn't even in the code! it might be a wacky template thing, but i couldn't figure it out... Mlm42 15:10, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

So i figured it out after all.. it's the Template:Jupiter that's doing it.. event on the template page the image is in a wonky place off the bottom of the screen.. and after many attempts, i don't see how to fix it, short of removing the image.. Mlm42 17:28, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Distance between Earth and Jupiter

Do you think it would be a good idea to add the minimum, maximum, and average distance between Jupiter and Earth. --Ephant 00:22, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, it would be. Football (sport) 09:54, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Fourth brightest object?

This line is in the Jupiter entry:

"Jupiter is usually the fourth brightest object in the sky (after the Sun, the Moon and Venus); however at times Mars appears brighter than Jupiter."

In the Mars entry we have:

"Mars can be seen from Earth by the naked eye with a brightness of up to -2.9 magnitude, only surpassed by Venus, the Moon and the Sun."

The two seem to contradict each other.

Anyone know which is correct? Ajkgordon 17:03, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Both are correct, in context. The magnitude of -2.9 is the highest Mars is seen as, which would make it brighter than Jupiter at that time. The sentence is stating that Mars' brightest magnitude is "only surpassed by Venus, the Moon and the Sun." The sentences do not contradict. - CobaltBlueTony 17:02, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Ajkgordon 13:51, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

"Brightest object in the sky" statements for the planets, the sun and the moon tend to be judged at their brightest, so either the statement about Mars or Jupiter is wrong. I can't find a source for the brightness of Jupiter. -- JamesHoadley 12:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

First seen by....?

This article says the Spot was first seen by Galileo, the Red Spot article says Cassini in 1665.

Which is it?--Skeev 19:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Overview

Anyone object to altering the third paragraph of the overview?

Most of it seems to be a tangent on the subject of extrasolar planets and not on Jupiter. Only the last two sentences really seem to deal with the subject of the article. LordNorth 22:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Did you know this?(Don't insult me because you already know it)

Did you know that the big red spot in Jupiter,there is a storm every millisecond(however,I don't know the spelling),and it lasted up to 225 million and 2000 years ago(that was when the world started(began.)User:Dark-hooded smoker

Well, the Great Red Spot is a storm and has been around for quite some time but nobody knows how long. It was first observed around 300 years ago - I'm not sure where you get the 225 million figure from. Even if that was correct, the Earth is a lot older than that - around four and half billion years old. Ajkgordon 08:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Ajkgordon,you could be right about it,but I'm not sure about it and this is only my stupid guess about it.Also,there is an error here.The world started in 225 million BC. User:Dark-Hooded smoker

Sizes

Jupiter is composed of a relatively small rocky core, surrounded by metallic hydrogen, surrounded by liquid hydrogen, which is surrounded by gaseous hydrogen. There is no clear boundary or surface between these different phases of hydrogen; the conditions blend smoothly from gas to liquid as one descends.

Article should mention here: How big is the core, and how big are each of the hydrogen 'shells'? Tempshill 15:24, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Impact of Comets

Just one question, does the second picture show in the southern section of the planet shows a series of white circles. Could this be the remenents of the schumacher-levie comet? Or is it a storm front like the red spot?Celtic Harper 17:14, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

When was Jupiter discovered?

hey everyone,i'm the guy who created about the great red spot lasted since the beginning of the world and the article of jupiter doesn't show when it was discovered.i wanna know when it was discovered,and if someone doesn't edit it and write that when jupiter was discovered,then i ain't gonna be happy with everyone unless someone edits and write when it was discovered.

Jupiter has been known to man since prehistoric times; it's visible with the naked eye. Nobody can say exactly when it was discovered. siafu 12:55, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I studied it now! jupiter was discovered 1610 AD by galileo and 4 of jupiters moon got discovered.jupiter has 63 moons:4 got discovered in 1620 AD by galileo and 59 of its moon got discovered later on(i haven't studied when 59 of jupiters moon got discovered and who discovered them) user:dark-hooded smoker

Jupiter was not "discovered" by Galileo, though he was apparently the first to observe it with a telescope, and he did discover the four largest satellites. Jupiter was also known to Copernicus, for example, even though he didn't have a telescope, and features prominently in quite a few astrological systems from the ancient world. siafu 13:12, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Maybe this article could make more discussion on what is thought to lie underneath the cloudy surface of Jupiter. Is it a rocky surface like that of the moon. Or is there no surface at all, and maybe there is just a bunch of choatic vapors swirling around forever. I am sure like alot of people, I am fascinated by the planet Jupiter. I am sure the atmosphere is poisonnous to a human being. But if a human being could stand on Jupiter. What would the atmosphere of Jupiter be like. I imagine very heavy and foggy clouds with little or no useful visibility. And how about the gravity in the air. I would like to see much more intimate data be added to the article area for Jupiter over the course of many months. www.geocities.com/berniethomas68 15:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

There is, technically, believed to be a rocky core of Jupiter, but not a solid surface. Outside the rocky core are two layers of liquid hydrogen (one metallic), and at these levels the gravity and pressure would crush anything currently buildable by man. siafu 16:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but I think that a rocky core has a solid surface...

In the article

It says that there have been other planets discovered with greater size and mass even than that of Jupiter. And I thought to myself, wow, they have discovered planets that are even bigger than Jupiter. Are these planets outside of our solar system. Maybe someone can shed light on this. I knew the sun was about 600,000 miles around the equator. But I did not think any other planet could have possibly been known to be bigger than Jupiter. www.geocities.com/berniethomas68 15:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Several extrasolar planets are believed to be larger than Jupiter, including the one orbitting PSR B1620-26, which is about 2.5 times as massive as Jupiter. siafu 16:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Failed GA nomination.

I simply failed this article because of the lack of references in the section "Exploration of Jupiter" and after. Find more references, then renominate, because otherwise, it is a fine article.Some P. Erson 23:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Question: Human body on Jupiter

If a human body were to suddenly appear on Jupiter's upper atmosphere would the body instantly freeze, be crushed by atmospheric pressures (depending on depth) or be the same but suffocate due to the lack of oxygen? I can remember my grade 10th science teacher saying that you would instantly gain muscle, sounds strange but I'm confused.

I may be wrong but I think that if a human body were to suddenly appear on Jupiter's upper atmosphere, there would remain just a handful of frozen atoms. According to NASA website, the force of gravity at the surface of Jupiter is up to 2.4 times stronger than on Earth. If you weigh 80 Kg on Earth, you would weigh 192 Kg. on Jupiter. That is what your teacher meant when he/she said that you would instantly gain muscle.

Silvano 01:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I think so, all I know is that for some bizzare reason you would gain lots of muscle before dying. Since a body would be pulled 2X the equivelant gravitational pull, it would be as a sky diver buring at increadible speeds. But why only would a handful of frozen atoms occur? I've also thought about the other gas giant planets like Neptune, it's easier to say that a human body on Neptune would simply freeze (-214) and implode further down where atmospheric pressures increase.

--Bumba claat 16:12, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Gain muscle is the wrong phrase, you would instantly become heavier, while keeping the same mass, as weight is dependant on the gravity pulling you down, though u'd be in a freefall so u wouldnt feel heavier, u'd die pretty quick from asphyxiation, though if u had an oxygen tank u'd live until u burnt up in the atmosphere due to the friction of the gas u were falling through, itd be the same story for all the gas giants -- Nbound 23:39, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

If you weigh 80 kg on Earth, you would weigh 80 kg on Jupiter. If you weigh 180 lb on Earth, you would weigh 180 lb on Jupiter. At least as far as the normal, proper meanings of "weigh" and "weight" as used in the medical sciences and in sports, the normal reasons we weigh ourselves. Of course, physicists and astronomers sometimes ignore the usual and correct usage in this regard, probably out of plain ignorance.

Kilograms and pounds are units of mass. That measurement wouldn't change. And kilograms-force are deprecated units, something we shouldn't be using (the English units are like old software, no longer fully supported and updated--nobody will bother to tell us not to use pounds-force without telling us not to use pounds of any sort).

However, the "surface" where that acceleration is claimed to be "2.4 times stronger" the NASA or whatever website is the atmospheric level with a pressure of about 75 kPa, only about 3/4 as thick as the pressure of Earth's atmosphere at its surface. You'd have a hard time finding a place there to set down your scale to weigh yourself. Gene Nygaard 21:30, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

How do you land on Jupiter?

Suppose you wanted to extract hydrogen from Jupiter and ship it around the solar system - how do you get to it? There is no solid footing to land on, any spaceship with tripod legs would sink very very deep before hitting that metallic hydrogen core, and just get crushed and supercompressed to "metallic metal" on the way. One workable way though might be by using a balloon such as the Goodyear Blimp or the Hindenburg, filled with pure hydrogen. As Jupiter is composed of a mixture of hydrogen and helum, a hydrogen filled balloon would float, though not by much. The upper layers are probably richer in the less dense hydrogen, but still containing significant amount of helium, which is twice as dense as hydrogen in gaseous state. You might find it better to locally separate and extract hydrogen via some energy source (such as solar) to keep blowing up larger and larger balloons as platforms for new stuff to land down onto. Another way would be a continuous helicopter-type suspension, but that would require a sustainable fusion engine, which would feed off the atmospheric hydrogen and convert it to helium, but such fusion-based engine is still a far dream for humanity. Any other fuel based engine method (such as nuclear submarine engines with high energy to mass ratio) would have to rely on fuel carried to Jupiter from other, solid astronomical bodies, such as Jupiter's moons or the asteroid belt, and because of the huge gravity and small atmospheric density, it would be very energy-cash prohibitive. But on Earth we have solar powered airplanes, perhaps one might be able to float in Jupiter too - though solar radiation intensity is much less there. A combo based on a big baloon with a little bit of thin solar panel powered helicopter nudge to stay afloat may work too. It also might be that filtering that 5 hydrogen atoms per cc in interplanetary space/solar wind may be more feasible than climbing out with hydrogen cargo from Jupiter's immense gravity. Sillybilly 07:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

You fill a ship with breathable air at earth pressure, it should easily float even in the upper layers (as in what you easily can see from space). The Atmosphere of the gas giants would increase in pressure very sharply the deeper you go, at the core, the pressure is enough that solid hydrogen exists at temperatures of 10's of thousands of degrees -- Nbound 07:11, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Forget about vacuum filled containers, or even low Earth-pressure filled containers - the walls would have be too thick and heavy for the required strength. I'm not even dreaming of humans landing on Jupiter, because the gravity there is so great, you'd probably end up with heavy skeletal disorders. I'm thinking about remote controlled robots landing, even that's a very difficult difficulty. We can easily generate artificial gravity where there isn't any, by centrifugal force - rotating space stations, huge merry-go round type Moon and Mars station buildings, but there is no way I can think of to undo gravity, to generate negative gravity or negative centrifugal force, negative acceleration, other than freefalling, but that's not sustainable for too long. Sillybilly 07:20, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I never mentioned a single thing from that entire reply.. please do not read stuff into what i post -- Nbound 07:23, 16 September 2006 (UTC)