Harrison WorldLAB Symposium
Topic:Jupiter
Group Members:Brittany
Question guiding the project:How is Jupiter different from the other planets?
Overview of the three required learning activities:
1. I'm going to Fernbank.
2. I'm going to contact NASA.
Findings (list):
1) Even in small telescopes Jupiter appears as a banded disc; the 4 bright accompaning satellites look like small stars in orbit about it revolving parallel to the bands.
2)As early as the year 1610 observers viewed Jupiter as a luminescent disc with a diameter slightley less than about one hundreth of a degree.
3)The Great Red Spot is centered at 20.5 degrees south planetocentric latitude and spans about 23,000 km in the east-west direction and 12,400 km in the north-south direction.
4)Lightning bolts on Jupiter are compsreable in strength to the superbolts observed near the cloud tops, about 10 billion joules of energy.
5) Jupiter is visible near the ecliptic for about 11 months of the year. Then for about 1 month it gets too close to the sun for observation. Except just before and after these disapparences Jupiter is brighter than the brightest fixed star Sirius (-1.6).
6)It takes Jupiter about 12 years to complete a circle tour of the sky. So in one year it changes right asension only about 2 hours toward the east.
7)The Great Red Spot is a swirling storm in Jupiter's southern hemisphere about twice the diameter of earth.
Conclusion: How was question answered: Jupiter is a lot bigger than all of the other planets put together. It is composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter has no distinct surface. The axis is tilted only by 3.08 degrees.
Questions raised for further study:
1)Will we ever get to visit Jupiter?
2)Will we ever see the surface of Jupiter?
