Stars, comets, asteroids and meteorites have fascinated people since the beginning of time. Priests prayed to celestial idols, astrologers predicted fate based on the trajectory of planets, astronomers studied constellations.
The ancient Romans and Greeks showed special respect to Jupiter. IN Ancient Rome he personified the Supreme God, and among the Greeks he was considered the king of Olympus. A worthy place, considering that Jupiter is the most big planet solar system.
Gas giant
At the center of our star system is the brightest star - the Sun, around which Uranus, Saturn, Neptune, Mercury, Mars, Earth, Venus and Jupiter revolve. All planets are very interesting, and each has its own distinctive characteristics. The largest of them is Jupiter.
It has a number unusual features:
- consists entirely of gas. Almost 90% is hydrogen, about 10% is helium, the remaining insignificant part is methane, sulfur, ammonia and water vapor;
- in the lower layers of the atmosphere, colossal pressure is recorded, due to which the gas turns into a liquid state, and the core of Jupiter is metallic hydrogen;
- it weighs 2.5 times more than all the other planets of the solar system combined, 318 times heavier than the Earth;
- its diameter is 1.39 thousand km! This means that Jupiter could easily fit 1,300 planets like ours motherland. It’s hard to even imagine such a huge scale;
- force magnetic field This celestial body exceeds the strength of the earth's by 20 thousand times and is the largest in the solar system. This poses, as yet, insurmountable difficulties for a thorough study of the planet, since no aircraft can get close enough;
- Its rotation speed is the highest of all the studied planets in the galaxy. The length of a day on Jupiter is less than 10 Earth hours. This, combined with its incredible size and gaseous state, leads to the flattening of the celestial body;
- the temperature in the lower layer of the troposphere is minus 150°C, and in upper layers atmosphere – plus 730°С;
- The gas giant is known for its endless storms of terrible force. The whirlwinds rush at a breakneck speed of 640 km/h! But the most amazing hurricane has been observed by astronomers since the end of the 17th century. It was called the Great Red Spot, has not been interrupted for more than 300 years, and is 3 times larger in size than the Earth’s diameter;
- Jupiter is many millions of kilometers away from Earth, but due to its impressive size, it is visible to the naked eye. With a medium-power telescope, you can see the surface of the giant, the Great Red Spot, rings and satellites.
Jupiter is not only the largest planet in the solar system, but also one of the largest planets in the universe known to scientists today.
The most...
Jupiter is exclusive in its own way. It is the largest planet in the solar system and has the strongest magnetic field. Jupiter is the fastest rotating planet, with the sharpest temperature difference - almost 900°C.
Not only in the Galaxy, but throughout the entire infinite space, it is difficult to find such a celestial body.
Moons and rings of Jupiter
A total of 67 satellites of Jupiter have been discovered. The first 4 - Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede - were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. They are named Galilean in his honor. They are also the largest. 
Ganymede is larger than all known satellites, even larger than planets such as Mercury and Pluto. Io is the only satellite in the Universe that has its own magnetic field, and it is also the most volcanically active celestial body known. The entire surface of the Europa satellite is covered with ice. Callisto is incredibly low reflective, leading scientists to believe it is a huge piece of colorless rock.
Also in 1979, the Voyager research probe discovered 3 faint rings around Jupiter.
Jupiter, together with its satellites, is very reminiscent of the Solar System in miniature. Therefore, most scientists in the world agree that after millions of years, Jupiter will be able to regenerate into a Star and become the center of another system in the Universe. Satellites around the planet may turn into celestial bodies with conditions suitable for life.
Other giants of the solar system
In addition to Jupiter, our system has 3 more large planets:
- Saturn. Its diameter is slightly inferior to Jupiter and is 116 thousand km. It is 95 times heavier than the Earth, is in a gaseous state, and the speed of storms on its surface is 1800 km/h. Has 62 satellites.
- Uranus has a diameter of 50.7 thousand km, it is relatively “light” - only 14 times heavier than the Earth, gaseous, winds rush across its surface at a breakneck speed - 900 km/h, a year on Uranus is equal to 84 earth years, has 27 satellites.
- Neptune is another one major planet with a diameter of 49.2 thousand km. It also consists of gases 17 times heavier than Earth. The wind speed here reaches 2100 km/h and is the most significant in the Universe. Has 14 satellites.
All the largest planets in the solar system, in addition to their enormous sizes, have such common features:
- gaseous state (the main components are hydrogen and helium);
- low density;
- very high rotation speed, which leads to some flattening of the planets from the poles;
- powerful gravitational field;
- a large number of satellites.
Queen of the Universe
Many people are interested in which planet is the largest in the entire vast space. In 2006, scientists at the Lovell Observatory in Arizona, USA, received an answer to this question. They discovered a giant planet in the Hercules system. There are not enough epithets in the modern Russian language to describe its size. It's impossible to imagine. She is a huge giantess; compared to her, even Jupiter seems like a baby. They named it succinctly and completely unromantically - TrES-4.
Although the diameter of the newly discovered planet is several times larger than the giant Jupiter, it is inferior in weight to it, which is explained by the very low density of the gaseous substance from which the giantess is “built”. You cannot land on the planet, you can only dive into it literally. Scientists around the world are at a loss as to how TrES-4 can exist at such a density without being dispersed in interstellar space.
The giant ball of gas is heated to 1300°C and is very similar to the Sun. For some time it was even considered a star, but then it was proven that TrES-4 is a planet. It orbits its star, named GSC02620-00648, 1,400 light-years away.
The above facts indicate that the endless expanses of space keep their secrets in silence. While exploring airless space, scientists encounter inexplicable and mysterious phenomena; most questions still remain unanswered.
When people say “the largest planet,” Jupiter immediately comes to mind. Yes, this giant is more than 11 times larger in diameter than the Earth, and 317 times heavier. The Earth, compared to this planet, is just a dwarf, suitable only as a satellite. Of course, he is the king in our solar system, only the Sun is bigger than him. However, everything in the world is relative.
Therefore, Jupiter is not at all the largest planet known to science. After all, thousands of planets have now been discovered around other stars, and among them there are some very strange and remarkable ones. Each such planet is a world unlike the others, and a separate article can be written about each of them.
Until recently, the record holder for size was the planet Tres-4b, located in the constellation Hercules. From 2006 to 2011, it was the largest planet in the Universe. It is 1.706 times larger than Jupiter, almost twice. What is curious is that this planet is located in a binary system, and no other similar ones are yet known, because in such systems the gravitational forces of two stars act, preventing the formation of planets and stable orbits.
Planet Tres-4b is a gas giant similar to Jupiter and is located very close to its star - only 4.5 million kilometers. For comparison, the distance from the Sun to Mercury, the hottest planet in our system, is 58 million kilometers, and to Earth – 150 million!
Tres-4b completes a full orbit in just 3.5 days, and this ball of gas is very hot - its temperature exceeds 1700 degrees. Hot gas tends to expand, so this planet is “loose”, its density is very low, on average, like that of polystyrene foam or balsa wood. This is very little.
Although Tres-4b is a large planet, its mass is slightly less than that of Jupiter, and therefore its gravity is less. This hot gas planet large size and low gravity are not able to retain their matter, so they constantly lose it from their atmosphere. This gas plume trails behind the planet like a comet's tail.
This planet is a mystery to scientists. With such a gigantic size and disproportionately small mass, it simply should not exist. Yes, now it is losing mass, but how could it even form under such conditions? Maybe it was once not so hot, and therefore was smaller and more dense, like Jupiter? Then in the past it was much further from the star or was completely captured by the star somewhere along the way.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to look at this planet live in the foreseeable future - the distance to it is unimaginably large, 1600 light years.
This huge planet was discovered by the transit method back in 2006, and the results were published a year later.
The program within which the research was carried out is called TrES - Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey, or Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey. It involves three small 10-centimeter telescopes from different observatories, equipped with Schmidt cameras and auto-search. A total of five exoplanets were discovered as part of this program, including Tres-4b.
The largest planet in the Universe – HAT-P-32b
In 2011, the new largest planet in the Universe was discovered, which turned out to be larger than Tres-4b. It is located in the constellation Andromeda, at a distance of 1044 light years from us.
This planet has a radius of 2.037 times Jupiter, making it slightly larger than Tres-4b. But its mass is approximately the same, and slightly less than Jupiter’s. In other respects, HAT-P-32b is very similar to Tres-4b.
This planet is also a hot ball of gas, even hotter. Its temperature reaches 1888 degrees. This planet is also located close to the star - at a distance of about 5 million kilometers, and due to its enormous temperature, its gas also expands and is lost. Therefore, its density is also low.
Scientists are constantly discovering new planets around other stars, and it is possible that this record will be broken, and soon we will learn about the other largest planet in the Universe.
Jupiter is the most big planet in the world, or as it is commonly called, the largest planet in the solar system. The diameter of this wonder of the world is 143,884 kilometers, and its mass is 318 times greater than that of the Earth. The planet's rotation time around its axis is 9 hours and 55 minutes. Experts also calculated the exact number of seconds during rotation – 29.69.
In narrow circles, Jupiter is called a gas giant. A large amount of metallic hydrogen was found inside it. The depth of such an “ocean” is 55,000 kilometers. This substance is formed as a result of the ionization of liquid hydrogen at strong pressure. Ionization then gives hydrogen the properties of a metal.
A huge collision in the solar system
In the summer (July) of 1994, particles from comet Shoemaker-Levy hit Juriter. The largest part fell on Jupiter on July 18. At that moment, a powerful explosion occurred, releasing energy equal to 6 billion megatons (measured in fuel equivalent).
In 2010 (June), the largest planet collided with a huge asteroid in the solar system. A scientist named Anthony Wesley observed this event and captured the moment when Jupiter collided with an asteroid whose size was 8-13 meters.
Features of Jupiter
-- The planet's mass is 3 times greater than the weight of all other planets in the solar system. According to experts who have been studying the giant for decades, most of it consists of gases and liquids that surround its solid core.
- Jupiter has atmospheric belts. They consist of ice crystals of ammonium and methane. Such molecules are located at an altitude of 1280 kilometers from the planet, and form atmospheric belts.
-- The atmosphere of the giant planet, in certain properties, is similar to the Solar one. It contains 86.1 percent hydrogen and 13.8 percent helium. The remaining elements of the periodic table are present, but in minimal quantities.
-- The planet has very high temperature and pressure. Such phenomena compress hydrogen gas, producing a dense substance that turns into a liquid state.
Once Jupiter's pressure increases, hydrogen is converted to methane. Due to the fact that the “record holder” moves quite quickly, powerful electric currents are formed in this layer. These electric currents generate a large magnetic field, with a power several times higher than that of the Earth.
-- The solid core of Jupiter is 2 times larger than the size of the Earth.
Our Universe is truly huge. Pulsars, planets, stars, black holes and hundreds of other objects of incomprehensible size that are found in the Universe.
And today we would like to talk about the 10 biggest things. In this list, we've put together a collection of some of the largest objects in space, including nebulae, pulsars, galaxies, planets, stars, and more.
Without further delay, here is a list of the ten biggest things in the universe.
The largest planet in the Universe is TrES-4. It was discovered in 2006 and is located in the constellation Hercules. The planet, called TrES-4, orbits a star that is about 1,400 light-years away from planet Earth.
The planet TrES-4 itself is a ball that consists primarily of hydrogen. Its dimensions are 20 times greater than the size of the Earth. Researchers claim that the diameter of the discovered planet is almost 2 times (more precisely 1.7) larger than the diameter of Jupiter (this is the largest planet in the solar system). The temperature of TrES-4 is about 1260 degrees Celsius.
To date the most a big star is UY Scutum in the constellation Scutum at a distance of about 9,500 light-years from us. This is one of the most bright stars- it is 340 thousand times brighter than our Sun. Its diameter is 2.4 billion km, which is 1700 times larger than our star, with a weight of only 30 times the mass of the sun. It’s a pity that it is constantly losing mass; it is also called the fastest burning star. This may be why some scientists consider NML Cygnus the largest star, and others consider VY Canis Majoris.
Black holes are not measured in kilometers; the key indicator is their mass. The largest black hole is in the galaxy NGC 1277, which is not the largest. However, the hole in the galaxy NGC 1277 has 17 billion solar masses, which is 17% of the total mass of the galaxy. For comparison, the black hole of our milky way has a mass of 0.1% of the total mass of the galaxy.
7. Largest galaxy
The mega-monster among the currently known galaxies is IC1101. The distance to Earth is about 1 billion light years. Its diameter is about 6 million light years and holds about 100 trillion. stars; for comparison, the diameter of the Milky Way is 100 thousand light years. Compared with Milky Way IC 1101 is more than 50 times larger and 2000 times more massive.
Lyman-alpha blobs (drops, clouds) are amorphous bodies resembling amoebas or jellyfish in shape, consisting of a huge concentration of hydrogen. These blots are initial and very short stage the birth of a new galaxy. The largest of them, LAB-1, is more than 200 million light years wide and is located in the constellation Aquarius.
In the photo on the left, LAB-1 is recorded by instruments, on the right is an assumption of what it might look like up close.
A radio galaxy is a type of galaxy that has much greater radio emission compared to other galaxies.
Galaxies, as a rule, are located in clusters (clusters), which have a gravitational connection and expand with space and time. What is located in those places where there are no galaxies? Nothing! Regions of the Universe in which there is only “nothing” and is emptiness. The largest of them is the emptiness of Bootes. It is located in close proximity to the constellation Bootes and has a diameter of about 250 million light years. Distance to Earth approximately 1 billion light years
The largest supercluster of galaxies is the Shapley supercluster. Shapley is located in the constellation Centaurus and appears as a bright clump in the distribution of galaxies. This is the largest array of objects connected by gravity. Its length is 650 million light years.
Most large group quasars (a quasar is a bright, energetic galaxy) is Huge-LQG, also called U1.27. This structure consists of 73 quasars and has a diameter of 4 billion light years. However, the Great GRB Wall, which has a diameter of 10 billion light years, also claims primacy - the number of quasars is unknown. The presence of such large groups of quasars in the Universe contradicts Einstein’s Cosmological Principle, so their research is doubly interesting for scientists.
If astronomers have disputes about other objects in the Universe, then in this case almost all of them are unanimous in the opinion that the largest object in the Universe is the Cosmic Web. Endless clusters of galaxies surrounded by black matter form “nodes” and, with the help of gases, “threads”, which in appearance are very reminiscent of a three-dimensional web. Scientists believe that the cosmic web entangles the entire Universe and connects all objects in space.
> The largest planet in the solar system
The largest planet in solar system- Jupiter. Read the description, interesting facts and Scientific research for the most massive planet around the Sun with photo.
The largest planet in the solar system is of course Jupiter. It is not only the largest, but also the most massive planet orbiting the Sun.
Jupiter fascinated observers 400 years ago, when it was visible in the first telescopes. It's a beautiful gas giant with swirling clouds, a mysterious sunspot, a family of moons, and lots of features.
What's most impressive is the scale. In terms of mass, volume and area, the planet is the largest planet in the solar system. The ancients knew about its existence, so Jupiter was noted in many cultures. Below is a comparison of the sizes of Jupiter, Earth and Moon.
Size, mass and volume of the largest planet in the solar system
Mass – 1.8981 x 10 27 kg, volume – 1.43128 x 10 15 km 3, surface area – 6.1419 x 10 10 km 2, and the average circumference reaches 4.39264 x 10 5 km. To give you an idea, the diameter of the planet is 11 times larger than the Earth and 2.5 times more massive than all solar planets.
Jupiter is a gas giant, so its density is 1.326 g/cm 3 (less than ¼ of Earth's). Low density- a hint for researchers that the object is represented by gases, but debate still continues about the composition of the core of the largest planet.
Composition of the largest planet in the solar system
It is the largest of the gas giants, divided into an outer atmospheric layer and an inner space. The atmosphere is filled with hydrogen (88-92%) and helium (8-12%). Chemical composition Jupiter's atmosphere is shown in the figure.
Traces of methane, water vapor, silicon, ammonia and benzene are also noticeable. Hydrogen sulfide, carbon, neon, ethane, oxygen, sulfur and phosphine can be found in small quantities.
The interior of Jupiter contains dense materials, so it consists of hydrogen (71%), helium (24%) and other elements (5%). The core is a dense mixture of metallic hydrogen in a liquid state with helium and an outer layer of molecular hydrogen. It is believed that the core may be rocky, but there is no exact data.
The question of the presence of a core was raised in 1997, when gravity was figured out. Information hinted that it could reach 12-45 Earth masses and cover 4-14% of Jupiter's mass. The presence of a core is also supported by planetary models, which say planets required a rocky or icy core. But convection currents, as well as hot liquid hydrogen, could reduce the parameters of the core.
The closer to the core, the higher the temperature and pressure. It is believed that at the surface we will note 67°C and 10 bar, in the phase transition - 9700°C and 200 GPa, and near the core - 35700°C and 3000-4500 GPa.
Moons of the largest planet in the solar system
We now know that there is a family of 67 moons near the planet Jupiter. Four of them are the largest and are called Galilean because they were discovered by Galileo Galilei: Io (continuous active volcanoes), Europa (massive subsurface ocean), Ganymede (the largest moon in the system) and Callisto (subsurface ocean and old surface materials).
There is also the Amalthea group, where there are 4 satellites with a diameter of less than 200 km. They are 200,000 km distant and have an orbital inclination of 0.5 degrees. These are Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea and Thebe.
There also remain a whole bunch of irregular moons that are smaller in size and have more eccentric orbital routes. They are divided into families that converge in size, composition and orbit.
Interesting facts about the largest planet in the solar system
Let's find out more interesting facts about Jupiter. Auroras are observed near the north and south poles of the largest planet in the solar system. But here they are much more intense and practically do not stop. This is influenced by a powerful magnetic field and incoming material from Io's volcanoes.
There is a dense atmosphere where the wind accelerates to 620 km/h. In just a few hours, powerful storms form. The most popular is the Great Red Spot, observed since the 1600s.
With the discovery of exoplanets, we realized that planets are capable of larger sizes than our gas giant. Kepler has already found more than 300 super-Jupiters. Among the examples, it is worth recalling PSR B1620-26 b, considered the oldest planet (12.7 billion years). In addition, there is HD 80606 b with the most eccentric orbit.
The interesting thing is that in theory there are planets that are 15 times larger than Jupiter. When deuterium is fused, they become brown dwarfs. Jupiter received the name from the Romans in honor of the supreme deity.
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