Jupiter

After pondering on some local black box operations, I attended a star party with Vivian and Euterpe.

In short, the kindergarten of my daughter invited a few semi-professional stargazers to give a talk. They also brought their telescopes along so that we could all share a glimpse of the clear autumn sky.

The major character of the evening was Jupiter. Thanks to the explanation of our instructor, I could learn a few interesting things of this lovely star:

• It is more close to earth than Pluto.
• In spite of its heavy mass, it has the fastest rotation of all the planets in the solar system. One day on Jupiter is merely 10 hours on earth.
• Largely because of its fast rotation, its atmosphere is highly violent. In fact, one of the best known features of Jupiter is the Great Red Spot - a persistent anticyclone storm that's been noted for a few hundred years.
• It has no fewer than 60 satellites; 4 of them are particularly obvious to lay observers.
• And, above all, although it is very heavy, its major composition is hydrogen and helium. In short, it is merely a gigantic bag of gas.

PS. Were our friends actually astrologists ?