How Did Jupiter Save Earth From Destruction?

[Music] everyone knows that jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system it's 318 times as massive as earth and 2.5 times bigger than all the other planets combined it's a gas giant and for a long time scientists haven't exactly known what lies beyond the violent swirling clouds in the atmosphere but now scientists have discovered what the inside of jupiter really looks like what have they found and has jupiter really saved the earth from total annihilation because of its incredible size our solar system began as a disk of dust and gas some 4.6 billion years ago the first planets to form with the gas giants neptune uranus saturn and jupiter jupiter took shape about the same time as the rest of the solar system forming around 4.5 billion years ago its strong gravity pulling in massive amounts of gas and dust from the disc before all the other planets formed it was the first and the largest jupiter is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium about 90 percent hydrogen and about 10 helium almost the same composition as our sun which is about 70 hydrogen and 28 helium some astronomers call jupiter a failed star however the gas giant only has a massive 1 000th that of the sun jupiter just isn't massive enough for gravity to trigger nuclear fusion the beautiful whirling clouds and storms that you see in images the layer resting on the surface known as the troposphere are about 31 miles thick and are made up of ammonia ammonium hydrosulfite and water which form the distinctive red and white bands when you look at jupiter you probably think that it must have a solid surface the fact is that jupiter doesn't have a true surface it's mostly swirling gases and liquids and if you sent a spacecraft there it would have nowhere to land but just because the spacecraft wouldn't have a place to land doesn't mean it would fly right through jupiter's atmosphere and come out unharmed through the other side this is because extreme pressures and temperatures deep inside the planet would crush melt and vaporize any spacecraft trying to fly into the planet but we've sent spacecraft to orbit and explore the planet the 1 billion juno probe the farthest space probe ever to be powered by solar arrays was launched towards jupiter on august 5th 2011 and arrived in orbit around the planet on july the 4th 2016 and what we've discovered and learned about jupiter is incredible the newest discovery using data collected from the juno spacecraft found that the colourful stripes of swirling gas and dust you see in jupiter's atmosphere were found to run 1800 miles deep and hold so much gas that the mass is about three times that of the entire earth these belts of wind flow at speeds of 223 miles per hour and disrupt how mass is spread across the planet it was also discovered that jupiter's atmosphere is rotating differently with zones and bands rotating at speeds that are different by up to 328 feet per second those bands on different colors you see are actually traveling in opposite directions lighter bands move in the direction of jupiter's rotation circling the planet faster than it spins and the dark coloured bands move slower in the opposite direction and take longer to move around the planet so how does a giant ball of gas floating around in space stay together and form a planet the jovian magnetosphere is the cavity created in the solar wind by jupiter's powerful magnetic field ballooning six hundred thousand to two million miles and tapers into a tadpole-shaped tail extending more than 600 miles behind jupiter this magnetosphere is the largest and most powerful of any planetary magnetosphere in the solar system jupiter's magnetic field is generated by electrical currents in the planet's outer core which is composed of liquid metallic hydrogen this magnetic field was found to be almost 20 000 times as powerful as earth and rotates with the planets sweeping up particles that have an electric charge the electromagnetic storms they generate are so strong that they can be heard by amateur radio operators on earth beamed towards us by plasmas and magnetic field lines these signals are sometimes even more powerful than radio signals from the sun this magnetic field traps swarms of charged particles and accelerates them to very high energies and creates intense radiation that bombards the innermost of its 67 confirmed and named moons and would destroy anything that got close speaking of jupiter's moons scientists have recently discovered an fm signal emanating from one of jupiter's moons ganymede if you want to see a video about this mysterious signal and jupiter's giant moons let us know in the comments by now you may be wondering does jupiter have a solid inner core studies have found the planet's interior moves as a single body and behaves as if it were a rigid solid despite its fluid nature for now we simply do not know if jupiter has a solid core or not but the juno spacecraft should be able to help discover this and what the mass and makeup of this solid core is if it exists we do know that at jupiter's core whatever it's made of the pressure is about 100 000 times the pressure on earth the great red spot is one of the most iconic features of the planet it's a massive storm the size of the earth that's been raging since it was first sighted in 1831 trapped between two jet streams it's called an anti-cyclone that swirls about a center of high atmosphere pressure and rotates in the opposite direction that hurricanes do on earth it's the largest storm in the solar system with wind measured around 400 miles per hour compare that to the fastest wind speed ever recorded on earth of 231 miles per hour one day this great red spot could end up disappearing completely and scientists say that it's been shrinking since the 1800s and many and may only last another 20 years nasa's juno spacecraft was able to snap incredible images of the planet as it passed at 5 600 miles above the giant red spot clouds in july 2017. one of the amazing things that was discovered is that deep in the atmosphere pressure and temperature increase greatly and compress the hydrogen gas into a liquid this gives jupiter the largest ocean in the solar system which is made of hydrogen instead of water juno also grabbed some spectacular images of the gas giant poles discovering another incredible wonder of the planet at the north pole of jupiter a huge persistent cyclone is visible and encircled by smaller cyclones ranging in size from 2500 to 2900 miles on jupiter's south pole the same thing was discovered as juno did a flyby and using infrared cameras imaged a cyclone the size of the entire usa with five other cyclones swirling around it in a geometric pattern which also rotate counterclockwise the nasa galileo spacecraft was likely the first to discover these hot spots when it accidentally flew through one on its way to a planned demise to the surface of jupiter when the spacecraft was almost out of fuel nasa deliberately sent the craft on a no return plunge into jupiter on september 21st 2003 this was done to protect the moon europa which some say has a subsurface ocean that could contain life it's worth mentioning that we probably should be thankful for the planet jupiter's size and the powerful magnetic field that it generates because it's possible that jupiter has saved the planet earth from certain doom people were laughing at the prospect of an asteroid or comet hitting the earth in the late 80s and early 1990s but then something happened that would quiet that laughter the comet shoemaker levy 9 was discovered by carolyn and jean shoemaker and david levy on march 18 1993 using the schmidt telescope at mount palomar scientists calculated the comet was originally 1 to 1.2 miles wide however tidal forces from jupiter's powerful gravity had broken the comet into more than 20 pieces as it made its close approach to the planet sometime in 1992 but the biggest revelation was scientists saw that the fragments were going to smash into jupiter and luckily for nasa its galileo orbiter was still on its way to the gas giant many earth-based telescopes and orbiting spacecraft such as the hubble telescope all were focused on the incredible event that was about to happen the fragments of the comet were lined up like a freight train and collided with jupiter's atmosphere unleashing the force of 300 million atomic bombs the fragments created huge dark spots in the clouds that measured 1200 to 1900 miles and heated the gas giant's atmosphere to temperatures as hot as 53 000 to 71 000 degrees fahrenheit if a comet of this magnitude hit the planet earth the results would be devastating with impact sending dust and debris into the sky which would cool the atmosphere and absorb sunlight and envelop the entire planet in darkness this historic jupiter comet impact is what led to planetary defense but fear not this type of collision was very rare and scientists say probably only occur every few centuries or do they on august the 7th an amateur astronomer was looking at jupiter through his telescope when he captured an asteroid colliding with the atmosphere of jupiter creating a white flash visible in the clouds some scientists say these impacts are inevitable with the amount of objects floating around in space and jupiter's massive gravity tugging on anything that gets close to it we could say that jupiter is like earth's big brother and likely protecting us from asteroid impacts we've learned some new things about jupiter and how its layers of atmosphere are made up and we've also been able to image the planet in striking detail piecing together images captured at the perfect moment for clarity called lucky imaging the highest resolution image of jupiter ever seen has been created in thermal infrared light in the photos you can see the familiar banding bright regions are clear air where heat from inside the planet can leak out and darker regions are where the thick clouds block the heat from escaping this proves that the interior of jupiter is very hot heat left over from its formation billions of years ago when taking a look at jupiter through the hubble telescope what you see is sunlight reflecting off the cloud tops with these amazing images we're learning more and more about jupiter every day and we're not done yet juno is still on its mission and only about one-third through its planned mapping of the planet and there are still reasons to believe that jupiter may have a rocky center that's enveloped in a layer of metallic hydrogen we're definitely going to get more incredible images of jupiter coming soon and we're about to unlock the mysteries of the biggest planet in the solar system so make sure to stay tuned here to see the latest stunning images of jupiter you

Channel: Destiny

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Keywords: How Did Jupiter Save Earth From Destruction?, Something Strange Is Happening On Jupiter, universe, space, science, scientists, galaxy, star, sun, earth, destiny, ridddle, what if, spacex, nasa, black hole, cosmos, moon Scientists Discovered, Scientists Are Worried, Should We Worry, Worry, Discovered, Just Discovered, Something Strange, Found, Scientists Can’t Explain, What’s Hidden Under, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune

Id: kQaWb266ogs

Length: 12min 14sec (734 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 14 2021