The two largest planets in the solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, have many of the same characteristics along with many differences. With the many technological advances in society today, we are able to observe and gain extensive information on these two "giants" in space. Throughout history, knowledge of the existence of Jupiter and Saturn have been known, but further knowledge has not been obtained until the development and deployment of space probes and other observational tools we now have today. Our solar system's largest planet has many outstanding characteristics that make it stand out from the rest. .
Jupiter, the fifth planet from the sun, is obviously a unique planet with many amazing characteristics. This mighty giant is by far the largest planet in our solar system. Interestingly enough, if Jupiter were to be 100 times larger than it is now, it could have become a star. In turn, our solar system would become a dual star solar system. The size of this planet is still an astounding 318 times more massive than our planet, Earth. Jupiter's Diameter is 142,984 km across at the equator. It would not be hard to believe that Jupiter is among the brightest objects in the sky. This planet is the fourth brightest object that we see in the sky, next to, of course, the sun, the moon, and Venus. Sometimes though, mars can also be brighter. What is also very interesting about Jupiter, along with Saturn, is that they are self-luminous. Meaning that they glow without the light of the sun. Incredible!.
Being such a large and bright planet, Jupiter was able to be seen and was known to exist even back in the prehistoric times. Galileo, living from 1564-1642, discovered that Jupiter had four large moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. This was discovered in 1610. We now know today that Jupiter has thirty-nine known satellites, the most in the solar system. With the discovery of the four large moons by Galileo, it showed that there was a center of motion not apparently centered on the Earth, which was the believed idea of the time.