Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System — more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. A swirling giant of gas and storm, it has shielded the inner planets from comets for billions of years, and its four great moons changed astronomy forever.
Jupiter has no solid surface — it is a gas giant, made mostly of hydrogen and helium, the same elements as the Sun. Dive in and the atmosphere just gets thicker and hotter until the gas becomes a strange metallic-hydrogen ocean. Its colorful bands are jet streams of ammonia clouds racing in opposite directions at hundreds of km/h.
The Great Red Spot is a single storm larger than Earth that has been spinning for at least 350 years. Winds at its edge reach 430 km/h. It has been slowly shrinking for a century — but it remains the most famous weather system in the Solar System.
In 1610 Galileo Galilei saw four points of light beside Jupiter — Io, Europa, Ganymede & Callisto. Proof that not everything orbits Earth. Ganymede is bigger than Mercury; Europa hides a vast ocean beneath its ice — one of the best places to search for life.
Jupiter's immense gravity acts as a cosmic shield, flinging away or swallowing comets and asteroids that might otherwise strike the inner planets. Some scientists argue that without this giant guardian, complex life on Earth might never have had the chance to evolve. The journey beyond Earth runs in its shadow.
“The same four lights Galileo chased four centuries ago still pull us outward.”
— CEO GALILEO