The planet Jupiter has no solid ground – no surface like the grass or dirt you tread here on Earth. There’s nothing to walk on, and no place to land a spaceship.
But how can that be? If Jupiter doesn’t have a surface, what does it have? How can it hold together?
Even as a professor of physics who studies all kinds of unusual phenomena, I realize the concept of a world without a surface is difficult to fathom. Yet much about Jupiter remains a mystery, even as NASA’s robotic probe Juno begins its ninth year orbiting this strange planet.
Jupiter’s mass is two-and-a-half times that of all the other planets in the solar system combined.
Jupiter, the fifth planet from the Sun, is between Mars and Saturn. It’s the largest planet in the solar system, big enough for more than 1,000 Earths to fit inside, with room to spare.
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