Question 2: the correct answer is Jupiter. Did you get it right? Award yourself 1 point.
Question 3 of 10
How many planets does the Solar System have?
Why, in question 2: What is the largest planet in the Solar System?
The answer is Jupiter. More than a thousand Earths would fit inside it, and its mass is about two and a half times that of all the other planets combined.
The Great Red Spot
Jupiter's red spot is a giant storm, larger than Earth, observed without interruption since the 19th century. Over the last few decades, it has been shrinking.
Jupiter is a gas giant, made mostly of hydrogen and helium, and it spins very fast: a day there lasts less than 10 hours, the shortest among the planets.
Some scientists describe Jupiter as a shield that deflects comets away from the inner Solar System, but studies show its gravity can also push objects closer to Earth.
In 1994, the world followed the collision of the fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter, the first collision between two bodies of the Solar System observed directly.
Jupiter has dozens of moons, and the four largest were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System, even larger than the planet Mercury.
