7 Important Dates in Jupiter History

The day the human race first laid eyes on Jupiter would probably be the most-fitting first date for this list, but the planet is so big (the largest in our solar system) that humans have been seeing it with their naked eyes likely since the origin of our species. So what event in early Jupiter history could possibly compare? Only the discovery that helped prove that Earth is not the center of the universe. On January 7, 1610, astronomer Galileo Galilei used a telescope to observe Jupiter and found peculiar fixated stars surrounding the planet. He recorded the movements of these four stars for the next few days, discovering that they moved with Jupiter and changed their location around the planet each night. Having just studied Earth’s moon with his telescope, Galileo had seen movement like this before—those “stars,” he realized, were not stars at all but individual moons that seemed to revolve around Jupiter. Galileo’s discovery debunked the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, which assumed Earth as the center of the solar system with all other celestial bodies revolving around it. By observing four of Jupiter’s moons (later named Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto), Galileo provided strong evidence for the Copernican model of the solar system, which places the Sun at the center of the solar system with Earth and the other planets moving around it and smaller celestial bodies like moons revolving around the planets.

One of Jupiter’s moons, Io, led the Danish astronomer Ole Rømer to the first measurement of the speed of light in 1676. Rømer spent time observing the movement of Io and Jupiter’s other satellites and compiling timetables of their orbital periods (the time it takes for the moons to revolve around Jupiter once). Io’s orbital period was observed to be 1.769 Earth days. Rømer was so dedicated in his studies that he continued tracking and timing Io’s orbital period for years, discovering a very interesting phenomenon as a result. Because Rømer was observing Io’s orbit throughout the year, he was recording data as Earth and Jupiter moved farther apart and closer to each other as they themselves orbited the Sun. What he discovered was a 17-minute delay in a usually clockwork eclipse of Io that occurred when Earth and Jupiter were farther away from each other. Rømer knew that Io’s orbital period couldn’t be changing just because of the distance between Earth and Jupiter, so he developed a theory: if only the distance between the planets was changing, the image of Io’s eclipse must be taking those 17 extra minutes to reach our eyes on Earth. This theory of Rømer’s was rooted in another: that light moved at a fixed speed. Rømer was able to use rough calculations of Earth’s diameter and the time delay from Jupiter to come up with a speed of light that was fairly close to the actual adopted value.

Jupiter’s most famous characteristic is probably its Great Red Spot, a storm larger than Earth that has spun around the planet for hundreds of years and can be seen in many photos of Jupiter’s surface. The first record of its being observed comes from an astronomer named Samuel Heinrich Schwabe in 1831. Though some “spots” on Jupiter had been observed by astronomers in earlier years, Schwabe was the first to depict the spot with its characteristic redness. The storm itself rotates counterclockwise and takes about six or seven days to completely travel around the entire planet. The size of the storm has changed since its discovery, becoming bigger and smaller as conditions within the planet change. It was believed to be about 49,000 km (30,000 miles) wide in the late 19th century but has since been shrinking at a rate of about 900 km (580 miles) per year. Eventually, it seems, the Great Red Spot will be gone. Though it is impossible to know for sure what the contents of the storm are, its characteristic redness could mean that it is filled with sulfur or phosphorous materials. It is most notable when it is red, but the spot actually changes color as the storm’s composition changes.

In 1955 two astronomers, Bernard Burke and Kenneth Franklin, set up a radio astronomy array in a field just outside Washington, D.C., to record data on celestial bodies in the sky that produce radio waves. After collecting a few weeks of data, the two scientists observed something strange in their results. About the same time every night there was an anomaly—a spike in radio transmission. Burke and Franklin at first believed this could be some sort of earthly interference. But after mapping where their radio astronomy array was pointed at this time, they noticed that it was Jupiter that seemed to be transmitting radio signals. The two researchers searched previous data for any sign that this could be true, that Jupiter could have been transmitting these strong radio signals without anyone noticing, and they uncovered over 5 years of data that supported their findings. The discovery that Jupiter transmitted bursts of radio signals allowed Burke and Franklin to use their data, which seemed to match patterns in Jupiter’s rotation, to more precisely calculate how long it takes Jupiter to revolve around its axis. The result? A single day on Jupiter was calculated to last only about 10 hours.

The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft approached Jupiter in 1979 (Voyager 1 on March 5 and Voyager 2 on July 9) and provided astronomers with high-detail photographs of the surface of the planet and its satellites. The photographs and other data that the two Voyager probes collected provided new insights into the planet’s features. The biggest finding was confirmation of Jupiter’s ring system, an arrangement of clouds of solid matter that circle the planet. Dust and remains from collisions that occur on Jupiter’s moons are the main components of the rings. The moons Adrastea and Metis are the sources for the main ring, and the moons Amalthea and Thebe are the sources of the outer part of the rings, called the gossamer rings. The photographs taken by the Voyager 1 and 2 probes also showed an active volcano on the surface of the Jovian moon Io. This was the first active volcano to be found outside Earth. Io’s volcanoes were discovered to be the top producers of matter found in Jupiter’s magnetosphere—a region around the planet where electrically charged objects are controlled by the planet’s magnetic field. This observation showed that Io has a larger effect on Jupiter and its surrounding satellites than previously thought.

On December 7, 1995, the Galileo orbiter, named after the man made famous in part by studying Jupiter, became the first spacecraft to successfully orbit the planet. The orbiter and its probe were on a mission to study Jupiter’s atmosphere and learn more about its Galilean moons—the first four of Jupiter’s moons that were discovered, by Galileo. The probe expanded on findings from the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, which had discovered the moon Io’s volcanic activity, and showed not only that these volcanoes exist but that their activity is much stronger than the volcanic activity currently seen on Earth. Rather, Io’s volcanic activity is similar in strength to that at the beginning of Earth’s existence. The Galileo probe also discovered evidence of salt water below the surface of the moons Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto as well as the presence of a type of atmosphere surrounding these three moons. The major discovery on Jupiter itself was of the presence of ammonia clouds in the planet’s atmosphere. Galileo’s mission ended in 2003, and it was sent on another—a suicide mission. The spacecraft was plunged into the atmosphere of Jupiter to stop it from contaminating with bacteria from Earth the Jovian moons and their possible life-forms living in the possible underground salt water.

The arrival of the space probe Juno on July 4, 2016, into Jupiter’s orbital space marked the latest achievement in Jupiter history. While it’s too early in its orbital period and too far away from Jupiter to measure data from the planet’s atmosphere (as of the writing of this list), Juno will likely supply some of the most-revealing data regarding the makeup of Jupiter and its outer atmosphere. The probe will eventually reach a polar orbit that will allow it to assess the levels of water, oxygen, ammonia, and other substances within the planet’s atmosphere and give clues to the planet’s formation. A look deeper into the storms that circle around Jupiter, such as its Great Red Spot, will also be possible with infrared technology and measurements of the planet’s gravity. The number one hope is that Juno will allow astronomers to piece together Jupiter’s origin story in order to learn more about the development of not only the planet but the rest of our solar system as well. Much like the Galileo spacecraft, the Juno probe is scheduled to destroy itself on February 20, 2018, by hurtling into Jupiter in order to avoid contaminating the planet’s moons.