Jupiter
King of the planets
Jupiter is a gas giant more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. Its atmosphere is stratified into colorful bands, and its most famous feature is the Great Red Spot, a storm that has raged for centuries.
Read the full Jupiter guideFacts about the largest planet: size, distance, temperature, the Great Red Spot, rings, atmosphere, Galilean moons and missions.Drag to rotate
Key facts
- Diameter
- 139,820 km
- Radius
- 69,911 km
- Mass
- 1.898e+27 kg
- Gravity (Earth = 1)
- 2.360
- Density
- 1.326 g/cm³
- Distance from Sun
- 778,500,000 km
- Orbital period
- 4,331 Earth days
- Rotation period
- 9.93 hours
- Average temperature
- -110°C
- Known moons
- 95
Values are approximate and based on cited sources.
Atmosphere
- Hydrogen
- Helium
- Methane
- Ammonia
Surface
No solid surface; a deep atmosphere transitions to liquid metallic hydrogen at extreme pressures.
Internal structure
A likely diluted rocky core, a layer of metallic hydrogen, and a thick molecular hydrogen envelope.
Moons
Io
Hundreds of active volcanoes powered by tidal heating.
Europa
Considered one of the most promising places to search for life beyond Earth.
Ganymede
The only moon known to generate its own magnetic field.
Callisto
Its ancient surface preserves a record of billions of years of impacts.
Exploration missions
Voyager 1
The most distant human-made object and the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space.
View missionVoyager 2
The only spacecraft to visit Uranus and Neptune and the only probe to fly past all four giant planets.
View missionGalileo
The first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter and to deploy a probe into a giant planet's atmosphere.
View missionJuno
The first solar-powered spacecraft designed for sustained operations at Jupiter.
View mission
Sources
- NASA Science — Jupiter— last verified 2026-01-15