Jupiter, it's not just big it's HUGE. You could take all the other planets in the solar system, mash them together and you still wouldn't have a planet bigger than Jupiter. 11 Earths could fit across the equator of Jupiter. If Jupiter where a fish bowl it would take 1,000 Earth-size marbles to fill it up. Am I getting my point across? Jupiter has 16 moons, the 4 largest of which are easy to see from Earth. Jupiter is BIIIIIG.

Jupiter is really great to look at with a telescope. You can easily see the colored cloud bands and the storms on the surface of the cloud tops (the little white dots in the picture above). Jupiter rotates on it's axis in just under 11 hours, which means it's really zipping along, so you can almost see the entire planet in one observing session if you're patient. Don't forget to watch the shadows of the moons of Jupiter cross the face of the planet. The 4 largest moons of Jupiter are worth mentioning themselves. Io is covered with volcanoes, of which about 10 are now erupting. Europa is covered with ice, and there may be a giant ocean of water under that ice. Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, may contain water and ice surrounding a core of rock. Callisto is covered with craters, one of which is almost a thrid the size of the moon itself.

If you went to Jupiter on summer vacation you'd die. Assuming you could find a place to set up camp, the radiation from Jupiters magnetic field would BBQ you. It takes around 300 rads to kill a human, the radiation field of Jupiter is over 1,000,000 rads, so don't go there unless you've got some SPF 10,000,000,000 sun-block.

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