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Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and by far the largest within the solar system. Jupiter is usually the fourth brightest object in the sky (after the Sun, the Moon and Venus); however at times Mars appears brighter than Jupiter.

Jupiter is 2.5 times more massive than all the other planets combined, so massive that its barycenter with the Sun actually lies above the Sun's surface (1.068 solar radii from the Sun's center). It is 318 times more massive than Earth, with a diameter 11 times that of Earth, and its volume is 1300 times as great as that of Earth. Quite naturally, Jupiter's gravitational influence has dominated the evolution of the solar system: some have described the solar system as consisting of the Sun, Jupiter, and assorted debris.

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Space & Time News

November 15, 2025

Researchers engineered “gyromorphs,” a new type of metamaterial that combines liquid-like randomness with large-scale structural patterns to block light from every direction. This innovation solves longstanding limitations in quasicrystal-based ...
Arctic sea ice is disappearing fast, and scientists have turned to an unexpected cosmic clue—space dust—to uncover how ice has changed over tens of thousands of years. By tracking helium-3–bearing dust trapped (or blocked) by ancient ice, ...
New research from UBC Okanagan mathematically demonstrates that the universe cannot be simulated. Using Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, scientists found that reality requires “non-algorithmic understanding,” something no computation can ...
A team of astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to create the first 3D atmospheric map of an exoplanet. The fiery WASP-18b, a massive “ultra-hot Jupiter,” revealed striking temperature contrasts, including regions so hot they destroy ...
Scientists have developed a groundbreaking tool called Effort.jl that lets them simulate the structure of the universe using just a laptop. The team created a system that dramatically speeds up how researchers study cosmic data, turning what once ...
Tohoku University researchers have found a way to make quantum sensors more sensitive by connecting superconducting qubits in optimized network patterns. These networks amplify faint signals possibly left by dark matter. The approach outperformed ...
Two Sydney PhD students have pulled off a remarkable space science feat from Earth—using AI-driven software to correct image blurring in NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Their innovation, called AMIGO, fixed distortions in the telescope’s ...
A UCLA-led team has achieved the sharpest-ever view of a distant star’s disk using a groundbreaking photonic lantern device on a single telescope—no multi-telescope array required. This technology splits incoming starlight into multiple ...
Researchers propose that hydrogen gas from the early Universe emitted detectable radio waves influenced by dark matter. Studying these signals, especially from the Moon’s radio-quiet environment, could reveal how dark matter clumped together ...
3I/ATLAS, a mysterious interstellar object racing toward the Sun, is baffling scientists with its speed and origin. Some researchers suggest it could even be alien-made, drawing comparisons to probes ...
High above the Sun’s blazing equator lie its mysterious poles, the birthplace of fast solar winds and the heart of its magnetic heartbeat. For decades, scientists have struggled to see these regions, hidden from Earth’s orbit. With the upcoming ...
A colossal northern asteroid impact billions of years ago likely shaped the Moon’s south polar region and explains its uneven terrain. Researchers found that the South Pole-Aitken Basin formed from a glancing northern strike, revealing deep ...

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