2007-09-25 02:13:59 · 8 answers · asked by - 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Its a bully. There's always one.
2007-09-25 02:32:21 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
The Sun had been blowing gases away from the inner part of the disc into the colder outer part. These gases, mainly hydrogen and helium, formed a great cloud around the icy bodies that had formed there. These bodies began to attract more and more gases, growing bigger in the process. The body we call Jupiter happened to be in the thickest part of the gas cloud, and it attracted the most gas and eventually became the largest planet.
2007-09-25 05:50:48 · answer #2 · answered by SIMONE 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Gravity. When the solar system was forming, the Sun was surrounded by a disk of gas and dust, out of which the planets were formed. Jupiter started to form in the same way as the other planets, by collecting together dust and asteroids gravitationally, but it became so big that way that its gravity was able to pull in the hydrogen gas as well, and there's a lot more hydrogen gas in space than dust and rocks. So it pulled in huge amounts of hydrogen gas, and became very big. Same with Saturn.
2007-09-25 02:33:07 · answer #3 · answered by ZikZak 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
No one knows for sure, but it's not as dense as some other planets. Jupiter is made up of a lot of hot air (gas) and it's surprisingly warm for how far out it is.
Some astronomists think it's actually a star, kind of like the sun, that got stuck in the sun's orbit.
2007-09-25 02:35:21 · answer #4 · answered by dude 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, you see, there was this big empty space to fill up...
And there was all of this stuff floating around in little drips and drabs, scattered all over the place. Several of the drips bumped into a drab and kind of liked the feeling of togetherness, so they stayed together. Other drips and other drabs looked on and wondered what was going on... So they joined the party. One thing led to another and pretty soon all the drips and all the drabs for miles and miles around had all gathered up into one fairly compact ball.
Ezra McGillicudy named the big ball "Jupiter" in about 601
BC, I think.
2007-09-25 02:37:51 · answer #5 · answered by zahbudar 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
There was just a lot more gas and dust at that point in the cloud that formed our Solar System. And, of course, as the size (mass) grew, so did the gravitational acceleration.
Jupiter is a 'proto-star'. If it had something like 2 or 3 times more mass, we'd be living in a binary star system.
Doug
2007-09-25 03:17:12 · answer #6 · answered by doug_donaghue 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
It isn't all that big. There are many larger planets known in other solar systems. And it would have to be ELEVEN times larger to be a brown dwarf, not the two or three times someone said.
2007-09-25 03:24:54 · answer #7 · answered by GeoffG 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Because it was the first of the planets to start to coalesce so it had more stuff to gather. And the bigger you are the more stuff you can attract.
2007-09-25 02:31:18 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋