PLANET SEARCH
FUTURES:
Winner of Sir Arthur Clarke Award for 'Best Written
Presentation', 2005
Jupiter
The
GiantPlanet
- Diameter: 88,846 miles/142,984 km
- Distance fromSun:483 million miles/778 M km
- Length of Year: 11.9 Earth years
- Rotation: 9 hours 55 minutes
- Gravity (x Earth's): 2.6
- Axial Tilt: 3.1 degrees
- Average Temperature: -108C
| 'Eruption on Io' A close-up of one of Io's volcanoes as it begins to erupt, with a fully-fledged plume silhouetted against Jupiter's half-disc in the distance. (From Book of the Universe by Ian Ridpath; also cover for Analog, May 2002. Private collection of D. Encill | ) |
| The Galileo space probe can just be seen against the cloud belts of Jupiter, as it flies by the highly volcanic moon Io. Several plumes erupt hundreds of kilometres into space. | ) |
|
Most of the asteroids orbit between Mars and Jupiter, but a few ~ like Hidalgo, here ~ approach much closer to the giant planet; in this case, within one AU (astronomical unit ~ the distance between the Earth and the Sun). |
) |
|
In 1994 the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke up and crashed into Jupiter. This painting, of several fireballs within Jupiter's atmosphere, one of which has broken through the cloud layer, was used by the ITV News (ITN) in animated form. |
) |
| A number of scientists and SF writers, including Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke, haved postulated life among the clouds of gas-giant planets like Jupiter, floating between the cold upper layers and areas where internal heating creates updrafts of organic materials. Here we see grazing 'floaters' and manta-like predators. | ) |
| Designed as the jacket for my book Visions of
Space (Paper Tiger, 1989/90), this is a self-portait of myself painting
on Io! There are many reasons why this would be impossible, as explained
in the text. . . (Out of print, but please e-mail.) |
) |
| The latest theory of life outside our Earth revolves not around Jupiter itself, but the deep oceans which are believed to lie beneath the ice-shell that forms the surface of its moon Europa. I imagined that some impact from space, or volcanic activity from below, has cracked the ice, allowing Jove to be seen briefly. Europan life clusters around a hot vent, similar to the 'black smokers' found near Earth's ocean trenches. From Futures. |
 |
| A new, digital image of an eruption on Io, from Futures. The glow of fresh lava illuminates the base of a plume of gas on the horizon, and a lava-filled crack radiates from its source. |
) |
| Polar aurorae on Jupiter, as recorded by several probes, would appear reddish to human eyes, since there is none of the oxygen or nitrogen which gives terrestrial aurorae their green, blue or violet colours. Yellow-orange Io is visible at left. From Futures. |
 |
Tel/Fax:
0121 777 1802 (intl: +44 -0)