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Jupiter is the 5th planet from the Sun, and the largest planet in the Solar System. How much bigger is Jupiter than Earth? Just to give you a sense of scale, Jupiter is 2.5 times more massive than all the rest of the planets in the Solar System combined.
Jupiter’s diameter is 11.2 times larger than Earth. In other words, you could put 11.2 Earths side-by-side to match the diameter of Jupiter.
And Jupiter’s volume is even bigger. It would take 1321.3 Earths to fill up the volume of Jupiter. In terms of surface area, Jupiter is 121.9 times bigger than the Earth. That’s how many Earths could be flattened out to cover the surface of Jupiter.
Jupiter has 317.8 times the mass of the Earth.
Even though Jupiter is an enormous, massive planet, it’s much smaller than the Sun. The Sun accounts for 99.86% of the mass of the Solar System. You could fit 109 Earths side by side to match the diameter of the Sun, and it would take 1.3 million planets the size of the Earth to fill it up.
We’ve written many articles about Jupiter for Universe Today. Here’s an article about pictures of Jupiter, and here’s an article about missions to Jupiter.
If you’d like more information on Jupiter, check out Hubblesite’s News Releases about Jupiter, and here’s a link to NASA’s Solar System Exploration Guide to Jupiter.
We’ve also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast just about Jupiter. Listen here, Episode 56: Jupiter.
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