Ast10 - Lesson 9: Jupiter

Front 1

What can we see on Jupiter?

Back 1

Clouds, swept into parallel bands of bright zones and dark belts by the planet’s rapid rotation and counter-flowing, east-west winds.

Front 2

How does Jupiter turn into Liquid?

Back 2

Jupiter turns to liquid under high pressures within its interior, so the cloudy atmosphere has no distinct bottom and Jupiter’s weather pattern is free to flow in response to the giant planet’s rapid spin.

Front 3

What is Great Red Spot?

Back 3

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and white ovals are huge shallow anti-cyclonic storms, which can have diameters larger than the Earth’s and last for centuries.

Front 4

How does Jupiter form energy?

Back 4

Large whirling storms on Jupiter gain energy by merging with, and engulfing, smaller eddies. The little storms pull their energy from hotter, lower depths.

Front 5

What are Jupiter's three layers of clouds and how are they formed?

Back 5

White clouds of ammonia ice form in the coldest, outermost layers of Jupiter’s atmosphere. Water clouds are expected to form at greater depths, and ammonium hydrosulfide clouds should condense between the water and ammonia clouds.All of the clouds on Jupiter ought to be white, composed of complex compounds in small amounts. Bolts of lightning illuminate deep, wet storm clouds on Jupiter.

Front 6

How is the entry site into Jupiter different from the rest of the planet's atmosphere?

Back 6

When the Galileo spacecraft parachuted a probe into Jupiter, the entry site, a region of downdraft, was missing the expected three layers of clouds and it was far drier and windier than anticipated.

Front 7

What drives the weather pattern in Jupiter?

Back 7

Jupiter’s ever-changing weather patterns are driven mainly from within, by internal energy rather than by external sunlight.

Front 8

What compounds does the outermost atmosphere of Jupiter consist of?

Back 8

the outermost atmosphere of Jupiter is slightly depleted in helium, and enriched in carbon, nitrogen and sulfur by a factor of about three. The visible cloud tops and outer atmosphere of Jupiter form a very thin veneer that covers a vast global sea of liquid hydrogen.

Front 9

How much energy does it radiate?

Back 9

Jupiter is a primitive incandescent globe that radiates 1.67 times as much energy as it receives from the Sun, probably as heat leftover from when the giant planet formed.

Front 10

What is Jupiter composed of?

Back 10

Jupiter originated together with the Sun, so both consist of lightest elements: hydrogen and helium.If Jupiter was about 80 times more massive, it could have become a star. Jupiter has a non-spherical shape with a perceptible bulge around its equatorial middle.

Front 11

What is Jupiter's interior composed of?

Back 11

Most of Jupiter’s interior consists of fluid metallic hydrogen formed under the extreme pressures that exist inside the planet. The Interior has dense, molten core with a mass =< 12 times that of the Earth.

Front 12

How is its magnetic field generated?

Back 12

by rotationally driven electrical currents inside its vast internal shell of liquid metallic hydrogen.

Front 13

Which moon of Jupiter exhibits most volcanic activity in the solar system?

Back 13

The volcanoes on Jupiter’s innermost large moon Io have turned the satellite inside out. The volcanoes emit plumes of sulfur dioxide gas that freeze onto the surface as a white frost. Volcanic vents on Io are filled with melted silicate rocks that are hotter than on any planet’s surface, even Venus.

Front 14

Why does Io produce volcanoes?

Back 14

Changing tidal forces squeeze Io’s rocky interior in and out, making it molten inside and producing volcanoes.

Front 15

How is aurora produced on Jupiter and Io?

Back 15

A vast current of 5 million amperes flows between the satellite Io and the poles of Jupiter, generating 2.5 trillion watts of power and producing aurora lights on both the satellite and the giant planet.

Front 16

What is plasma torus?

Back 16

Doughnut shaped ring that is used to store ton of sulfur and oxygen ions every second picked up by Jupiter's magnetic field when it sweeps past Io.

Front 17

What are the physical characteristics of Jupiter's Europa?

Back 17

no mountains or valleys on the bright, smooth, ice-covered surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa; it has few impact craters indicating a relatively young age.Long, deep fractures run like veins through Europa’s icy covering, apparently filled by the upwelling of dirty liquid water or soft ice.

Front 18

What are the functions of the subsurface sea within Europa?

Back 18

An electrically conducting, subsurface sea within Europa may be responding to Jupiter’s magnetic field, generating a time-varying magnetism in the satellite. It also lubricates large blocks of ice that float across Europa’s surface. There may be alien life here.

Front 19

What are the physical characteristics of Jupiter's Ganymede?

Back 19

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is bigger than the planet Mercury. The satellite’s icy surface has been fractured and pulled apart, producing a grooved terrain, and surface depressions have been filled by eruptions from volcanoes of ice.

Front 20

What is unique about Ganymede's magnetic field?

Back 20

It is the only satellite where the magnetic field now generates its own magnetism

Front 21

What are the physical characteristics of Jupiter's Callisto?

Back 21

Jupiter's moon Callisto has one of the oldest, most heavily cratered surfaces in the solar system. Yet, the satellite is covered by fine dark, mobile material and it has a lack of small craters when compared to the surfaces of the Moon and Mercury.

Front 22

How does Callisto generate magnetic current?

Back 22

Like Europa, the outermost large moon Callisto generates electrical currents in a subsurface ocean as Jupiter’s magnetic field sweeps by. But Callisto has a largely homogeneous interior without any apparent dense iron core, and the buried sea has to lie deep enough to not affect its unaltered, cratered surface.

Front 23

What is Jupiter's ring system made of?

Back 23

Jupiter’s faint, insubstantial ring system is made of dust that last for only a few thousand years and thus must be replenished if the ring system is a permanent feature.

Front 24

How does the ring system form?

Back 24

When interplanetary meteoroids, attracted by Jupiter’s powerful gravity, pound into the small inner moons of Jupiter, they chip off dust fragments that go into orbit around the planet, forming its ring system.