“Stargazing Basics: Getting Started in Recreational Astronomy”

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• Photos Of Jupiter Reveal More Than Surface View Of Mysterious Planet, According To Author

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  It’s not any news that Jupiter is the largest planet in Earth’s solar system, beating out all other planets in both mass and volume. Telescopes have revealed this information hundreds of years ago.

  Paul Kinzer, author of “Stargazing Basics: Getting Started in Recreational Astronomy,” said it’s the planet’s composition that is worth taking note of. He said if anyone attempted to land on Jupiter, they would be surprised to find that there would be no ground for them to land upon.

  “When we see Jupiter, what we see is actually cloud tops. We don’t see the surface. In fact, there isn’t really a surface of Jupiter,” said Kinzer.

  It’s composed mostly of hydrogen, approximately 90 percent, according to Kinzer.

  “Because it’s a massive planet — that it’s so compressed near the middle — that the hydrogen becomes a kind of metal — metal hydrogen,” Kinzer said.

  The remaining percent is composed of helium and other traces that give the planet its color.

  When storms occur on the planet, elements like phosphorous and sulfur are brought to the top of the clouds that create Jupiter’s range of colors. White spots are supposedly cool storms, brown are warm and red are hot storms.

  Perhaps, the planet’s most noted feature is its Great Red Spot (GRS). This storm was first spotted hundreds of years ago again thanks to telescope.

  “It’s called the Great Red Spot, but it’s more of a tan color now. So, you have to have a really good telescope and really sharp skies where everything is very steady to even see it,” Kinzer said.

  Photos recently taken by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed some interesting discoveries about the “gas mark.” A mysterious “wispy filament” was found within the GRS and the rate at which it usually shrinks seems to be slowing down, according to the NASA and the European Space Agency report.

  That being said, Kinzer stated that the GRS is still enormous and Earth would easily fit inside of it.