Explore the Universe - Jupiter

A portion of the Explore the Universe certification that I have not really discussed yet is on the Solar System.  All of the planets (except Earth) are on the list to observe.  The easiest are certainly Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.  Mercury and Mars are particularly easy as well depending on the time of year.

Jupiter has many mythological connections being that he is the Roman king of the gods in their pantheon.  I will not go into any mythological details since it would comprise a multi-year blog specifically dedicated to Jupiter alone.  Suffice it to say Jupiter to the Romans is essentially Zeus to the Greeks.  His wife was named Juno and she was always spying on her husband because of his infidelities.  This is why the probe sent to the planet Jupiter had the name Juno.

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system.  It is a gas giant comprised mainly of Hydrogen and Helium.  It is only a thousandth the mass of the Sun but more that two times the mass of all the other planets combined.  Jupiter takes nearly 12 years to orbit the sun but only 9 hours to rotate on its axis.  This means that a solar day on Jupiter is only 9 hours long.  This means that Jupiter has more than 10,000 days in one of its own years.  Could you image a year with 10,000 days!?

There is so much that can be said about our largest planet but I want to keep this entry brief.  If you would like to see some pictures from the Juno space probe please see the NASA link below.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/images/index.html

I have observed Jupiter through a telescope many times.  It went away throughout the Winter as it moved into conjunction with the Sun but it is now back for Spring.  I made my official observation on April 3, 2017, 4 days before opposition.  Even though I had seen it many times it still makes for a spectacular sight.  The four Galilean moons shine very brightly.  I decided to try and capture an image of Jupiter using a high frame rate video camera.  These cameras are useful since they can capture several hundreds frames per second.  The frames with poor atmospheric distortions are removed and the remaining 'good' frames are stacked into a decent image.  The image below is my first attempt at capturing Jupiter.  Unfortunately the red spot was on the other side at the time.

Jupiter

Stay tuned to our Weekly Updates to know where you can see the planets in all their glory!

Enjoy the sky when it is free from clouds, and try to find our planetary neighbours!