Magnetic field: the area around a planet that has a magnetic force It takes 12 Earth years for Jupiter to make one revolution around the sun, so a year on Jupiter is equal to 12 years on Earth.Īstronomical unit (AU): the average distance from the sun to Earth - about 149 million kilometers (93 million miles). Jupiter's orbit is elliptical, or oval-shaped. Jupiter's day is only about 10 hours long. Jupiter rotates, or spins, faster than any other planet. Jupiter's rings are made up mostly of tiny dust particles. The rings were discovered in 1979 by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft. Winds range from 192 mph to more than 400 mph. At its widest point, the storm is about three-and-a-half times the diameter of Earth. It is a giant spinning storm, resembling a hurricane. One of Jupiter's most famous features is the Great Red Spot. The planet's surface is covered in thick red, brown, yellow and white clouds. Its atmosphere is made up of mostly hydrogen gas and helium gas, just like the sun.

Image Credit: The Galileo Project/JPL/NASA/APOD The Galileo spacecraft took this photo of Jupiter's Great Red Spot in 1996. The planet is named after Jupiter, the king of the Roman gods. When viewed from Earth, it is usually the second brightest planet in the sky, after Venus. This distance is a little more than five times the distance from Earth to the sun. Jupiter's average distance from the sun is 5.2 astronomical units, or AU. Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun. If Jupiter had been about 80 times more massive, it would have become a star rather than a planet. More than 1,000 Earths would fit inside Jupiter. Jupiter is so large that all of the other planets in the solar system could fit inside it. It is approximately 143,000 kilometers (about 89,000 miles) wide at its equator. Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Jupiter is known for its stripes and large red spot.

Antigua winds vs jupiter