A trip to Jupiter isn’t your average road trip—it’s a journey across millions of miles of space! If you hopped on a spacecraft like NASA’s Juno, which launched in 2011, it would take about 5 years to reach the gas giant. But the timing depends on the spacecraft's speed and the route it takes, often using slingshots around other planets to save fuel. Jupiter is about 365 million miles away from Earth at its closest, but distances change because both planets are always moving. While we can’t visit Jupiter’s surface (it doesn’t have one—it’s mostly gas!), exploring its moons and atmosphere is still super exciting. So, pack your patience, because getting to Jupiter is a marathon, not a sprint! Credit:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Applied Physics Laboratory
NASA
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National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Applied Physics Laboratory
NASA
Animation is created by Bright Side.
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Music by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
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https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
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FunTranscript
00:00It may seem like the best way to get to some planet from Earth is to patiently wait for it to
00:04come as close as possible. Yeah, there it is. And then take off on a rocket pointed in the
00:10planet's direction. Whoa, bye mom, see ya! Wait, why didn't this method work?
00:18First off, the planets, including our own, constantly move following their elliptical
00:23orbits at speeds of tens of miles per second. So your rocket kinda needs to be put in an
00:29elliptical orbit, right? Kinda like aiming a dart at a moving target or throwing a
00:35surprise party for your friend. You don't want the surprise to come at the wrong moment.
00:42Also, when we send spacecraft to other planets, we want to use as little energy as possible.
00:48And to get to any planet out there in the easiest way possible,
00:51you actually need a special trick called the Hohmann Transfer Orbit.
00:56Let's say you want to travel to Mars. You have to wait until Earth and the red planet are in
01:01the right positions so you don't get lost up there or run out of fuel somewhere halfway.
01:07Travelling there using a Hohmann Transfer Orbit would take about 259 days. That's because the
01:13transfer orbit between Earth and Mars takes 517 days to complete a full orbit,
01:19and the trip to Mars covers half of that orbit.
01:22Couldn't you just travel faster? Well, yeah, but that would waste way more fuel,
01:27which would make the launch more complicated, since the rocket would be too heavy. Basically,
01:33it would be like a dog biting its own tail. If you could travel at the speed of light,
01:38it would take you 12.5 minutes. Also, when your rocket finally gets to the other planet,
01:45it still needs to slow down to go into orbit, so you don't have to worry about getting lost.
01:52Or even land on its surface. This means it will use more energy, but you can try to use as little
01:59as possible and maybe go with things such as parachutes or aerodynamic braking. It's kind
02:05of like if you were riding your skateboard and needed to stop. You wouldn't just crash into a
02:09wall. You'd use your foot or something to slow down gradually. Traveling to Venus is a bit quicker.
02:18It would take you about 146 days. That's not bad, but the problem is you'd still need to wait for
02:25about two years before coming back to Earth. That's necessary because the planets need to
02:30realign themselves properly so that the spacecraft can meet Earth's orbit when it returns. So,
02:36in total, a round trip to Venus would take around two years and one month,
02:41including the waiting time. And that waiting time wouldn't be that pleasant, considering that's the
02:47hottest planet in our solar system. Let's say you want to travel to Jupiter. How long will that take?
02:55It depends on a lot of things, mainly its position. Plus, how fast are you traveling?
03:01If you want to use the best technology we have right now, you should know that it took the
03:05fastest spacecraft ever built, NASA's New Horizons, just over a year to reach Jupiter.
03:12But keep in mind that the New Horizons mission was just a flyby. The spacecraft didn't actually go
03:18into orbit around Jupiter. If you wanted to stay in orbit and explore Jupiter up close,
03:24it would take way longer. So, definitely not a weekend trip.
03:31Using the Hohmann transfer, you'd need several years to get to Jupiter. That's because a Hohmann
03:37transfer puts focus on transferring an object from one orbit to another. Jupiter is in a higher orbit
03:43than our home planet. So, to finish the transfer, your rocket would need to travel along a path
03:49that would take it past the orbit of our gas giant. So, the rocket would need to speed up
03:54when it gets closer to Jupiter to avoid falling back towards the Sun, and then slow down when it
04:00passes Jupiter to avoid flying off into space. It's like a car speeding up to climb a hill
04:06and then slowing down as it goes down the other side. This is how the spacecraft
04:10uses the gravity of Jupiter to move into orbit around the gas giant.
04:17It's hard to tell the exact distance between Jupiter and Earth. They're both traveling around
04:21the Sun in different oval-shaped paths. Sometimes they get really close to each other, and other
04:27times they're really far apart. It's like they're playing tag. But on average, they're 444 million
04:34miles away from each other. When Jupiter is farthest away from Earth, it's a whopping 601
04:40million miles away. That's like driving around the entire Earth 24,000 times. But if you could
04:47travel to Jupiter at the speed of light, on average, you'd get there in 40 minutes.
04:54There's this super-fast spacecraft we need to mention, the Parker Solar Probe. Imagine you're
05:00on a really fast roller coaster, moving at incredible speeds that are hard to fathom.
05:05The roller coaster would actually be our Parker Solar Probe.
05:09It's flying closer and closer to the Sun, breaking speed records along the way.
05:16During its 10th close flyby of the Sun in November 2021, the Parker Solar Probe
05:22managed to reach a top speed of more than 360,000 miles per hour. That's like traveling
05:28around the whole Earth in several minutes. And get this, when the spacecraft gets even closer
05:34to the Sun in December 2024, it's expected to reach a speed of 430,000 miles per hour.
05:41Yep, not a good idea to have a big lunch before this roller coaster.
05:47Now, let's say you're on the Parker Solar Probe and you want to take a detour to visit Jupiter.
05:53If you were able to travel in a straight line at the same speed the Parker Solar Probe was going
05:58during its 10th flyby, it would only take you 42 days to reach Jupiter at its closest approach.
06:04On their average distance, you'd need a little bit longer to get there, 51 days.
06:11You'd also have to consider the duration of your trip.
06:14There are two ways your rocket can arrive at a planet, either by going into orbit around the
06:19planet or by just flying by really fast. If the spacecraft is supposed to go into orbit,
06:25it needs to slow down when it gets close to the planet. Imagine it gets captured by the
06:30planet's gravity and starts going around it. Better to slow it down when it arrives then.
06:35And this means burning lots of extra fuel and making your trip longer.
06:41Here's something interesting. To travel faster, we can use something called gravity assist.
06:47That means we use the gravity of planets and other objects in space to give us a little push and
06:53speed our precious rocket up. That's how the Voyager spacecraft were able to travel to Saturn
06:59and beyond. But even with a gravity assist, it still takes a really long time to travel to other
07:06stars. For example, the star that's closest to us is Proxima Centauri, and it's still 4.2 light-years
07:13away. Let's change the method now compared to the previous examples. If we traveled at the same
07:19speed as Voyager 1, it would take us 75,000 years to get there. If you prefer to take a trip to
07:27Uranus, know that the distance goes up to 2 billion miles, depending on the spot where the
07:33planets are during their orbits. It took about 9.5 years for Voyager 2 to reach Uranus.
07:41But Uranus is cold, and as an ice giant, it doesn't even have a real surface to land on.
07:47Most of the planet is swirling fluids anyway. Not only would you have nowhere to land there,
07:52but your rocket would hardly even manage to pass through the atmosphere of Uranus unscathed.
07:58The temperatures and pressures are extreme up there, and would just destroy your entire metal
08:03spacecraft. That's it for today. So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a
08:11like and share it with your friends. Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay
08:16on the Bright Side!