Jupiter is the biggest planet in the solar system. It is 2.5 times the mass of all the other planets of the solar system put together! It is a gas giant, rather than a terrestrial planet, and is made largely of hydrogen and helium.
The large spot on Jupiter is actually a storm that has been raging for several hundred years!
Jupiter was first visited by Pioneer 10 in 1973 and later by Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and Ulysses. The unmanned spacecraft Galileo orbited Jupiter for eight years. In 2003 Galileo was crashed deliberately into Jupiter, to stop it from impacting on Europa, one of Jupiters moons that scientists believe may harbour some basic form of life.
Jupiter is 779,000,000 km away from the sun.
