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Moon vs. Jupiter - Comparison of sizes
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Moon vs Jupiter - Comparison

Moon
Jupiter
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Moon

Moon

Diameter (km)3476
Distance to sun (km)363105,021
Equator (km)10921
Temperature-160

The Moon is an astronomical body orbiting Earth as its only natural satellite. It is the fifth-largest satellite in the Solar System, and by far the largest among planetary satellites relative to the size of the planet that it orbits (its primary). The Moon is, after Jupiter's satellite Io, the second-densest satellite in the Solar System among those whose densities are known. The Moon is thought to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth. The most widely accepted explanation is that the Moon formed from the debris left over after a giant impact between Earth and a hypothetical Mars-sized body called Theia. New research of Moon rocks, although not rejecting the Theia hypothesis, suggests that the Moon may be older than previously thought.The Moon is in synchronous rotation with Earth, and thus always shows the same side to Earth, the near side. Because of libration, slightly more than half (about 59%) of the total lunar surface can be viewed from Earth. The near side is marked by dark volcanic maria that fill the spaces between the bright ancient crustal highlands and the prominent impact craters. After the Sun, the Moon is the second-brightest celestial object regularly visible in Earth's sky. Its surface is actually dark, although compared to the night sky it appears very bright, with a reflectance just slightly higher than that of worn asphalt. Its gravitational influence produces the ocean tides, body tides, and the slight lengthening of the day. The Moon's average orbital distance is 384,402 km (238,856 mi), or 1.



28 light-seconds. This is about thirty times the diameter of Earth. The Moon's apparent size in the sky is almost the same as that of the Sun, since the star is about 400 times the lunar distance and diameter. Therefore, the Moon covers the Sun nearly precisely during a total solar eclipse. This matching of apparent visual size will not continue in the far future because the Moon's distance from Earth is gradually increasing. The Moon was first reached by a human-made object in September 1959, when the Soviet Union's Luna 2, an unmanned spacecraft, was intentionally crashed onto the lunar surface. This accomplishment was followed by the first successful soft landing on the Moon by Luna 9 in 1966. The United States' NASA Apollo program achieved the only manned lunar missions to date, beginning with the first manned orbital mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, and six manned landings between 1969 and 1972, with the first being Apollo 11 in July 1969. These missions returned lunar rocks which have been used to develop a geological understanding of the Moon's origin, internal structure, and the Moon's later history. Since the 1972 Apollo 17 mission, the Moon has been visited only by unmanned spacecraft. Both the Moon's natural prominence in the earthly sky and its regular cycle of phases as seen from Earth have provided cultural references and influences for human societies and cultures since time immemorial. Such cultural influences can be found in language, lunar calendar systems, art, and mythology.

Source: Wikipedia
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Jupiter

Jupiter

Diameter (km)142984
Distance to sun (km)778330000
Equator (km)142984
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

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