Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System and quite possibly the most amazing, too.  If you want to see it from Earth it appears like a yellow-white disc in the night sky.  Scientists say that studying Jupiter will help us understand the chemistry and behaviour of Earth's atmosphere, albeit on a much larger scale.  Jupiter can be described as quite an active planet however, as many storms rage all over the planet, the most famous being the 'Red Spot'.  In fact, due to Jupiter's incredible density (its interior pressure may be as much as 100 million times the surface pressure of Earth's!) and temperature some scientists believe that Jupiter has no solid core; just a dense liquid or slushy core.   Jupiter also has an incredibly large magnetic field, even in relation to its own volume; it stretches millions of miles into space and electric activity is so strong that Earth recieves billions of Watts into its own magnetic field from Jupiter every day!

Despite having a diameter 11 times bigger than Earth's, Jupiter spins on its axis faster than any other planet in the Solar System.  This is why it bulges out at the equator.  This rapid spinning also makes the powerful wind systems which makes the clearly visible 'bands' that make Jupiter so easily recogniseable.   Some of the winds travel at speeds of up to hundreds of kilometres per hour!   The biggest and most well known storm on this behemoth of a planet, the 'Great Red Spot' is over three times the size of the Earth and has existed for hundreds of years.

Jupiter's thin line of rings were only discovered by the Voyager space probe in the late 1970's. They are 5920 kilometres wide and 1 km thick. This was a totally unexpected discovery and more recently it has been discovered there are in fact 3 sets of rings.

Jupiter has 16 moons: Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea, Thebe , Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Leda, Himalia, Lysithea, Elara, Ananke, Carme, Pasiphae and Sinope.

Here is a summary of Jupiter's main moons: