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Planet

Jupiter

The largest planet: a gas giant more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined.

NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M. H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL team (CC BY 4.0)

A planet so big that its storm, the Great Red Spot, is larger than the whole Earth.

A crescent Jupiter with swirling cloud bands.
Jupiter from NASA's Juno spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

Jupiter is made mostly of hydrogen and helium. It spins faster than any other planet, once in under 10 hours, which flattens it visibly at the poles. The Great Red Spot is a storm larger than Earth that has been observed for well over a century.

Its gravity shapes the asteroid belt and deflects many comets. Its four largest moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, were discovered by Galileo in 1610.

Moons in the knowledge base

Explore it in the orrery

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