What’s something big?

You could say a house, or a skyscraper, or even the Earth. In terms of scale, however, besides the Sun, the largest object in our solar system is Jupiter, right in front of Saturn. To give sense of scale, Jupiter has a hurricane that has been raging on it for many decades. The name is “The Great Red Spot”, and it in itself is large enough to consume the Earth. However, the size of Jupiter belies its true mass and what lies underneath. Unlike some other planets, such as Earth or Mars, Jupiter is a gas giant, which is mainly composed of light gasses like hydrogen and helium. This means that Jupiter instead has no surface, but while there is no physical ground to land on, a spacecraft cannot fly straight through the maelstrom of elements. 

Though Jupiter is the largest planet, it also spins the fastest. Each day on Jupiter is only 10 hours, since that is how long it takes for the planet to fully rotate. While the days are fast, each Jupiter year is actually 11.8 Earth years. Jupiter also has the largest amount of moons, having 67 of them, including the moon Europa, which has been found to contain water and ice. Another thing about Jupiter is that it could float in water – If you had a pool big enough for it, that is.