![]() Thereafter, the growing planet reached its final masses in 3–4 million years. When the proto-Jupiter grew larger than 50 Earth masses it created a gap in the solar nebula. During its formation, Jupiter's mass gradually increased until it had 20 times the mass of the Earth, approximately half of which was made up of silicates, ices and other heavy-element constituents. ![]() As a consequence, the planet must have formed before the solar nebula was fully dispersed. The planet began as a solid core, which then accumulated its gaseous atmosphere. Current models of Solar System formation suggest that Jupiter formed at or beyond the snow line: a distance from the early Sun where the temperature is sufficiently cold for volatiles such as water to condense into solids. Jupiter is believed to be the oldest planet in the Solar System. See also: Formation and evolution of the Solar System The older adjectival form jovial, employed by astrologers in the Middle Ages, has come to mean 'happy' or 'merry', moods ascribed to Jupiter's influence in astrology. Jovian is the adjectival form of Jupiter. The original Greek deity Zeus supplies the root zeno-, which is used to form some Jupiter-related words, such as zenographic. The English equivalent, Jove, is only known to have come into use as a poetic name for the planet around the 14th century. The Latin name Iovis is associated with the etymology of Zeus ('sky father'). It has been theorized that this replaced the Latin name for the day, Dies Iovi ('Day of Jupiter'). In Germanic mythology, Jupiter is equated to Thor, the namesake of Thursday. The planetary symbol for Jupiter,, descends from a Greek zeta with a horizontal stroke, ⟨Ƶ⟩, as an abbreviation for Zeus. The International Astronomical Union formally adopted the name Jupiter for the planet in 1976, and has since named its newly discovered satellites for the god's lovers, favourites, and descendants. In both the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, Jupiter was named after the chief god of the divine pantheon: Zeus to the Greeks and Jupiter to the Romans. Future targets for exploration in the Jupiter system include its moon Europa, which probably has an ice-covered liquid ocean which scientists think could sustain life. The latest probe to visit Jupiter, Juno, entered its orbit in July 2016. In 2007, New Horizons visited Jupiter for a gravity assist to increase its speed and bend its trajectory on the way to Pluto. The Galileo orbiter arrived in orbit around Jupiter in 1995. Jupiter has since been explored by multiple robotic spacecraft, beginning with the Pioneer and Voyager flyby missions from 1973 to 1979. ![]() Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter, making its closest approach to the planet in December 1973. ![]() Callisto is the second largest Io and Europa are approximately the size of Earth's moon. Ganymede, the largest of the four, is larger than the planet Mercury. Jupiter has 95 known moons and probably many more, including the four large moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. The planet's magnetic tail is nearly 800 million kilometres (5.3 astronomical units 500 million miles) long. Jupiter is surrounded by a faint planetary ring system and has a powerful magnetosphere. A prominent result of this is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm which has been observed since at least 1831. The outer atmosphere is divided into a series of latitudinal bands, with turbulence and storms along their interacting boundaries. ![]() Because of its rapid rotation rate of 1 rotation per 10 hours, the planet's shape is an oblate spheroid: it has a slight but noticeable bulge around the equator. The ongoing contraction of Jupiter's interior generates more heat than the planet receives from the Sun. Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen, followed by helium, which constitutes a quarter of its mass and a tenth of its volume. It was named after Jupiter, the chief deity of ancient Roman religion. Jupiter is the third brightest natural object in the Earth's night sky after the Moon and Venus, and it has been observed since prehistoric times. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, and slightly less than one one-thousandth the mass of the Sun. Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. ![]()
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