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From: dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: StarDate: November 10 The Moon and Jupiter
Message-ID: <1394@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Nov-86 02:00:17 EST
Article-I.D.: utastro.1394
Posted: Mon Nov 10 02:00:17 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Nov-86 21:53:48 EST
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 37

The largest planet in the solar system -- after this.

November 10  The Moon and Jupiter

The bright object near the moon tonight is the planet Jupiter -- the
largest planet of the solar system and the fifth planet outward from
the sun.

Jupiter speeds through space about half as fast as Earth does.  Our
planet travels at eighteen miles a second through space -- Jupiter
moves along at eight miles per second.  Last September the Earth caught
up to Jupiter on the inside track as the planets race around the sun.
Now the Earth is speeding ahead as Jupiter drops behind.

Like the Earth -- which has the moon for a companion -- Jupiter doesn't
travel alone around the sun.  The gas giant is accompanied by sixteen
moons -- all unique -- some as much like planets as the planets
themselves.

The four largest jovian moons are called the Galilean satellites after
the astronomer Galileo, who lived nearly five hundred years ago.  If
you had a telescope tonight, you could easily see the Galilean moons.
And if you looked tonight -- and then again tomorrow night -- you'd
find that the positions of the Galilean moons had changed relative to
Jupiter.  Chart the changes in their positions over a period of time --
and you would find, like Galileo did, that these satellites orbit
Jupiter.  Galileo used his observations of the jovian moons to confirm
the theory that the planets of the solar system all revolve around the
sun -- not the Earth.

Even without a telescope it's easy to spot the planet Jupiter tonight
-- with the help of the moon.  Jupiter is the bright object about four
moon diameters away on the dome of the sky -- a giant world with many
moons of its own.

Script by Diana Hadley.
(c) Copyright 1985, 1986 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin