Characteristics
-Jupiter takes 11.9 earth years to orbit the sun, at a mean distance 5.2 times greater than that of the earth.
-It takes, on averate, only 9.9 hours for the planet to rotate once on it's axis.
-The banded appearance of Jupiter is caused by strong atmospheric currents which cause different rotating rates at different latitudes, though.
-Jupiter has 63moons.
-It's four largest moons,
-The giant planet has at least sixteen moons, and possibly more. The four largest moons of the planet, called the Galilean moons, are in the picture at the right. The two largest moons are both bigger than the planets Pluto and Mercury, and the largest of them is almost the size of Mars!
