The planet Jupiter is one of the five objects to be visible from Earth in the solar system. Of these bodies it is the second largest behind the sun. Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System with a mass of 1.899x1027kg orbiting at 5.2AU from the Sun. Jupiter is orbited by 67 moons of which the first four are called the Galilean moons as of their discovery in 1614 by Galileo.
Jupiter formed about 4.6billion years ago from the cloud of dust and gas that made up the early Solar System. This early Solar System is known as a solar nebula. This cloud of dust and gas was compressed by a super nova from another part of the galaxy. This compression caused the cloud of dust and gas to form a flat disk. A product of this compression is that the …show more content…
It has been theorised that Jupiter actually formed closer to the Sun than previously thought about 3.5AU and was pulled towards the sun by currents in the gas clouds and reached the area of where Mars orbits and had yet to be formed. Jupiter probably stopped moving inwards as of the pull of Saturn as like Jupiter Saturn was closer to the centre of the Solar System so it had more effect on Jupiter. As Jupiter travelled inwards it gently nudged the Asteroid belt essentially switching places with it, and then as Jupiter went further out it encountered an area of icy objects and pushed many of them into the Asteroid belt. The evidence behind this theory is Mars itself, according to the inner planets Mars should be a lot larger than in currently is. So were did all the extra material that was meant to form Mars go, the answer is to Jupiter. As Jupiter came in on its flyby it scattered a lot of the material near the sun causing the Earth and Venus to receive more material but Mars to get what was left
Jupiter formed about 4.6billion years ago from the cloud of dust and gas that made up the early Solar System. This early Solar System is known as a solar nebula. This cloud of dust and gas was compressed by a super nova from another part of the galaxy. This compression caused the cloud of dust and gas to form a flat disk. A product of this compression is that the …show more content…
It has been theorised that Jupiter actually formed closer to the Sun than previously thought about 3.5AU and was pulled towards the sun by currents in the gas clouds and reached the area of where Mars orbits and had yet to be formed. Jupiter probably stopped moving inwards as of the pull of Saturn as like Jupiter Saturn was closer to the centre of the Solar System so it had more effect on Jupiter. As Jupiter travelled inwards it gently nudged the Asteroid belt essentially switching places with it, and then as Jupiter went further out it encountered an area of icy objects and pushed many of them into the Asteroid belt. The evidence behind this theory is Mars itself, according to the inner planets Mars should be a lot larger than in currently is. So were did all the extra material that was meant to form Mars go, the answer is to Jupiter. As Jupiter came in on its flyby it scattered a lot of the material near the sun causing the Earth and Venus to receive more material but Mars to get what was left