Javascript must be enabled to use all features of this site and to avoid misfunctions
Jupiter vs. Neptune - Comparison of sizes
HOME
Select category:
Planets
Select category
NEW

Advertising

Cancel

Search in
Close

Jupiter vs Neptune - Comparison

Jupiter
Neptune
Change

Jupiter

Jupiter

Diameter (km)142,984
Distance to sun (km)778,330,000
Equator (km)142,984
Temperature-108

<p>Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. </p>It's a gas giant with a mass one-thousandth that of the Sun, but two-and-a-half times that of the rest of the planets in the Solar System. Jupiter is one of the objects visible to the naked eye in the night sky, and has been known since before recorded history. It's named after the Roman god Jupiter. Jupiter can be bright for its reflected light to cast shadows, and is on average the natural thing in the night sky after the Moon and Venus, when viewed from Earth. Though helium contains only about a tenth of the number of molecules, jupiter is composed of hydrogen with a quarter of its mass being helium. It may also have a core of elements that are heavier, but like the other giant planets, Jupiter lacks a solid surface that is well-defined. Due to its rapid rotation, the world's shape is that of an oblate spheroid (it has a slight but noticeable bulge around the equator). The outer air is visibly segregated into bands at different latitudes, leading to turbulence and storms across their bounds. A result that is notable is the Great Red Spot, a storm that's known to have been around since at least the 17th century when telescope first saw it.



Surrounding Jupiter is a faint planetary ring system and a magnetosphere. Jupiter has 79 moons, including the four Galilean moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Ganymede, the largest of them, has a diameter greater than that of the planet Mercury. Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to go to Jupiter, making its closest approach to the planet on December 4, 1973; Pioneer 10 recognized plasma in Jupiter's magnetic field and also found that Jupiter's magnetic tail was nearly 800 million km long, covering the whole distance to Saturn. Jupiter has been explored on a number of occasions starting with the Pioneer and Voyager flyby missions from 1973 to 1979, and by the Galileo orbiter. In February 2007, Jupiter was visited by the New Horizons probe, which used Jupiter's gravity to increase its speed and flex its trajectory en route to Pluto. The most recent probe to visit the planet is Juno, which entered into orbit around Jupiter. Future targets for mining in the Jupiter system include the likely liquid sea of its moon Europa.

Source: Wikipedia
Change
Neptune

Neptune

Diameter (km)49.528
Distance to sun (km)4,501,000,000
Equator (km)155,600
Temperature-201

<p>Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun in the Solar System. </p>In the Solar System, it is the fourth-largest planet by the third-most-massive planet diameter, and the densest giant planet. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth, slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus. Neptune is physically smaller than Uranus and thicker because its mass causes gravitational compression of its atmosphere. Neptune orbits the Sun once every 164.8 years at a mean distance of 30.1 AU (4.5 billion km; 2.8 billion mi). It is named after the Roman god of the sea and has the astronomical symbol ♆, a stylised version of the god Neptune's trident. Neptune is not visible to the unaided eye and is the only planet in the Solar System found by forecast as opposed to by empirical observation. Changes in the orbit of Uranus directed Alexis Bouvard to deduce that its orbit was subject to gravitational perturbation. The position of Neptune was calculated from Bouvard's observations by John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier following his death. Neptune was observed with a telescope on 23 by Johann Galle within a degree of the position predicted by Le Verrier. Though none of the remaining 13 known moons of the planet were located before the 20th century its largest moon, Triton, was discovered soon thereafter. The distance from Earth of the planet gives it a very small apparent size, which makes it challenging to research with Earth-based telescopes. Voyager 2 visited neptune, when it flew by the planet on 25 August 1989; Voyager 2 remains the only spacecraft to visit Neptune.



The advent of the Hubble Space Telescope and large ground-based telescopes with adaptive optics has allowed for further observations from afar. Like Jupiter and Saturn, Neptune's atmosphere is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, together with traces of hydrocarbons and possibly nitrogen, even though it includes a higher proportion of"ices" such as water, ammonia and methane. However, similar to Uranus, its interior is primarily composed of ices and rock; Uranus and Neptune are normally considered"ice giants" to emphasise this distinction. Traces of methane in the outermost areas in part account for the world's blue appearance.In contrast to the hazy, relatively featureless atmosphere of Uranus, Neptune's atmosphere has visible and active weather patterns. For example, in the time of the Voyager 2 flyby in 1989, the world's southern hemisphere had a Great Dark Spot comparable to the Great Red Spot. These weather patterns are driven by the strongest sustained winds of almost any planet in the Solar System, with recorded wind speeds as high as 2,100 km/h (580 m/s; 1,300 mph). Due to its great distance from the Sun, Neptune's outer atmosphere is one of the coldest places in the Solar System, with temperatures in its cloud tops approaching 55 K (−218 °C; −361 °F). Temperatures in the world's centre are approximately 5,400 K (5,100 °C; 9,300 °F). Neptune has a faint and fragmented ring system (labelled"arcs"), which was discovered in 1984, then afterwards confirmed by Voyager 2.

Source: Wikipedia

More intresting stuff