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Why does Jupiter seem like it has a surface – regardless that it doesn't? – Sejal, 7 years old, Bangalore, India

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The planet Jupiter has no solid ground – no surface just like the grass or soil you walk on here on Earth. There is 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?

Also as a professor of physics Anyone who studies all kinds of unusual phenomena knows that the concept of a world with no surface is difficult to fathom. Still, much about Jupiter stays a mystery, including in terms of NASA's robotic probe Juno begins its ninth yr orbiting this strange planet.

First, some facts

Jupiter, the fifth planet from the Sun, lies between Mars and Saturn. It is the most important planet within the solar system, large enough for greater than 1,000 soils slot in and there remains to be space left.

While the solar system's 4 inner planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars – are all made from solid, rocky material, Jupiter is known as is a gas giant with a sun-like composition; It is a raging, stormy, wildly turbulent ball of gas. Some places on Jupiter have wind speeds of greater than 400 miles per hour (about 640 kilometers per hour), about thrice faster than a Category 5 hurricane on Earth.

Looking for solid ground

Start at the highest of Earth's atmosphere, descend about 60 miles (about 100 kilometers) and the air pressure increases constantly. Ultimately you’ll hit the earth's surface, either on land or in water.

Compare that to Jupiter: start at the highest of its predominantly hydrogen and helium atmosphere, and like Earth, the pressure increases the deeper you go. But on Jupiter, The pressure is immense.

As the layers of gas above you push further and further down, it's as should you're at the underside of the ocean – but as a substitute of water, you're surrounded by gas. The pressure becomes so intense that the human body would implode; you can be crushed.

At a depth of 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers), the recent, dense gas begins to behave strangely. Eventually, the gas turns right into a type of liquid hydrogen, creating the most important ocean within the solar system, albeit an ocean without water.

Go down one other 20,000 miles (about 32,000 kilometers) and the hydrogen becomes more like flowing liquid metal, a cloth so exotic that scientists have only recently, and with great difficulty, managed to accomplish that I reproduced it within the lab. The atoms on this liquid metallic hydrogen are squeezed so tightly together that their electrons can move freely.

Remember that these level transitions occur steadily, not abruptly. The transition from normal hydrogen gas to liquid hydrogen after which to metallic hydrogen occurs slowly and easily. At no point is there a pointy boundary, solid material or surface.

Scary to the core

Eventually you’d reach the core of Jupiter. This is the central area of ​​Jupiter's interior and mustn’t be confused with a surface.

Scientists are still discussing this exact nature of the core material. The hottest model: It will not be solid like rock, but more like a hot, dense and possibly metallic mixture of liquid and solid.

The pressure in Jupiter's core is so immense that it will be so 100 million Earth atmospheres are pressing on you – or two Empire State Buildings on every square inch of your body.

But pressure wouldn't be your only problem. A spacecraft attempting to succeed in Jupiter's core would melt from the acute heat of 35,000 degrees Fahrenheit (20,000 degrees Celsius). That's thrice hotter than the surface of the sun.

Jupiter helps the earth

Jupiter is a wierd and threatening place. But if Jupiter didn't exist, there won’t be humans.

That's because Jupiter acts as a protective shield for the solar system's inner planets, including Earth. With its massive gravitational pull, Jupiter modified that Orbit of asteroids and comets for billions of years.

Without Jupiter's intervention, a few of this space debris could have crashed to Earth; Had it been a catastrophic collision, it could have triggered an extinction-level event. Just have a look at what happened to the dinosaurs.

Jupiter can have supported our existence, however the planet itself is very inhospitable to life – no less than life as we understand it.

The same will not be the case with a moon of Jupiter, Europa, perhaps our greatest probability of finding it Life elsewhere within the solar system.

NASA's Europa Clipper, a robotic probe Starting in October 2024is predicted to conduct about 50 flybys over this moon Study its vast underground ocean.

Could something live within the waters of Europe? Scientists won't know for some time. Due to Jupiter's distance from Earth, the probe is not going to arrive until April 2030.

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