Max Goes to Jupiter: A Science Adventure with Max the Dog
To Children Around the World Believe in yourself believe in your dreams and work hard to create a world in which we can all live together in peace as we reach for the stars
This is the story of how Max the Dog helped humanity leap beyond the realm of the inner solar system on a visit to explore the giant planet Jupiter and its wondrous moons 3
Max was ready His training was complete and his spacesuit fit perfectly In a few days he would be bound for Jupiter Tori now all grown up would be the mission’s chief scientist Jupiter in the Night Sky Have you ever seen Jupiter in the night sky Probably so even if you don’t realize it because Jupiter outshines all the objects in the night sky except the Moon and Venus Of course we don’t always see Jupiter just as we don’t always see the Moon or Venus Sometimes Jupiter lies in the same direction as the Sun and is up above our horizon only in the daytime when we can’t see it At most other times Jupiter is visible only for part of the night We can see Jupiter all night long only when it is directly opposite the Sun as viewed from Earth The diagram below shows that this hap pens whenever Earth and Jupiter are aligned on the same side of their orbits around the Sun which occurs about every 13 months Notice that Jupiter is also at its closest to Earth at these times so these are the times when Jupiter appears brightest in our night sky Jupiter Earth 1 y Sun ear for ea c h orbit 12 years for ea c h or b it On nights when Jupiter is visible you’ll notice that it moves with the stars from east to west across the sky We see this east-to west movement because Earth rotates from west to east To find out if you can see Jupiter tonight go to www BigKidScience com Jupiter
Max’s younger friends would stay behind but they could see where he was going Jupiter king of the planets is often the brightest object in the night sky Tori showed the children how they could spot some of Jupiter’s moons through binoculars Jupiter Year After Year On any single night Jupiter appears to stay fixed among the stars But if you watch for many nights you will see that Jupiter like all the planets appears to move gradually among the stars that make up the 12 constel lations of the zodiac Pisces Aries Taurus Gemini Cancer Leo Virgo Libra Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn and Aquarius This movement is easy to understand As Jupiter orbits the Sun we see it in different places at different times against the distant back ground of stars Jupiter takes about 12 years to orbit the Sun which means it also takes about 12 years to move once through all the constella tions of the zodiac It therefore moves about one constellation each year For example if we see Jupiter in Capricorn right now we’ll see it in Aquarius at this time next year and in Pisces the year after that Find out where Jupiter is located among the zodiac constellations this year by going to www BigKidScience com Jupiter What do you think you will be doing the next time Jupiter returns to the same constellation 5
