Jupiter is the largest body in the solar system, and is 318 times as massive as Earth. It has a diameter of 142 800 km and a mass of 1.9 * 1027 kg. Because the gaseous planets are further away from the sun, they are composed of lighter elements than the terrestrial planets. Jupiter is a gas giant in the sense that it is a very large sphere of gas. There may be a very small solid core in Jupiter, but it is mostly gas. The temperature at the cloud tops of Jupiter is -150 degrees celsius. The day on Jupiter is only 9.8 hours long, and its year is 12 Earth years long.
Jupiter is the first of the gas planets. Jupiter does not have a separate solid core, but rather its gaseous material becomes more compressed nearer the center of the planet, so it is possible a solid core does exist. It is composed of 90% hydrogen and 10% helium by mass, as well as trace amounts of methane, water and ammonia. The core of Jupiter is likely solid, and about 15 times the size of Earth in mass. The next layer is a sea of liquid metallic hydrogen. This substance is merely a form of hydrogen that is so compressed, is is in the liquid state and conducts electricity. The final layer of Jupiter, its atmosphere, is the gaseous layer (clouds), which we see when we observe Jupiter. This layer is composed of gaseous hydrogen and helium.(Ahmed,1997)
Like other gas planets, Jupiter has very high speed winds which move in wide bands of latitude over the planet. It was found that not only are the winds fast on Jupiter, but that the whole atmosphere is quite turbulent. This would indicate that these winds are caused by internal heating rather than solar heating, as in the case of the Earth......
