Voyager gives spectacular details on Jupiter

Abstract

When the Romans named Jupiter after the king of the gods, they were closer to the mark than they knew. From a cosmic perspective, Jupiter is undisputed lord of the planets. Adding up all the mass in all the planets, satellites, asteroids, and meteorites of the solar system—everything but the sun itself—71% of it is in Jupiter. If the earth were peeled like an orange and laid flat on Jupiter's face it wouldn't be quite as big as Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Jupiter has 318 times the mass of earth. With a diameter of 88,700 miles, it is more than 11 times as wide as the earth. Three of its 13 satellites are larger than earth's moon. Two of them are larger than the planet Mercury. For all its apparent solidity, Jupiter is a liquid planet, an immense globe of liquid hydrogen almost identical in composition to the sun. In the deep interior the hydrogen ...