Planets · Gas giant

Jupiter

778 million km from the Sun · Light crosses it in 0.47 seconds

Across

139,822 km

Vs Earth

11× Earth

Mass

318 Earths

Open Jupiter in Cosmic Scale

About

Jupiter has two and a half times the mass of every other planet put together. It is a ball of hydrogen and helium with no solid surface, banded by jet streams and dotted with storms that last for centuries.

Its Great Red Spot is a storm wider than Earth that has raged for centuries.

At a glance

Year	11.9 years
Day	9 hours 56 minutes — the fastest
Mass	318 Earths
Moons	97 known

Did you know

1. The Great Red Spot is a storm wider than Earth that has been watched for at least 190 years, and is slowly shrinking.
2. Its magnetic field is the strongest of any planet, and its auroras are hundreds of times more powerful than Earth's.
3. Deep inside, the pressure may squeeze hydrogen into a liquid metal — the source of that magnetic field.

Real photos

• Jupiter from Cassini, December 2000 — NASA/JPL/University of Arizona · source
• Jupiter's auroras and polar hazes in infrared, from the James Webb Space Telescope — NASA, ESA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Judy Schmidt (CC BY 4.0) · source