PV Gap

Stacy Said:

Where is Jupiter in our solar system?

We Answered:

Jupiter is in orbit around the Sun so its distance from other planets varies a lot.

At this time, the Earth is more or less between Jupiter and the Sun and Mars and the Sun. We know this because at night, you can see Jupiter and Mars.

I think you meant to ask about the relative distances from Jupiter's orbit from the orbits of other solar system features. The reference below gives each planet and the distance from its average orbit from the Sun in AU. AU is a unit of distance called Astronomical Unit and is the average distance from the Earth to the Sun which is 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers.

So back to your original question, if Jupiter's orbit is around 5.2AU and Saturn's orbit is 9.5AU, then if Jupiter and Saturn are in line on the same side of the Sun, then they are only about 4.3AU from each other. If they are on opposite sides of the Sun from each other then they are about 14.7AU from each other.

Penny Said:

How is the Jupiter system different from a miniature solar system?

We Answered:

Yeah I guess because Jupiter is a planet and its satellites are moons, but that's a boring answer mainly based on definitions.
It has been said that if jupiter were 75 times larger it may have 'fired up' into a star, and then we would've been in a binary star system with two solar systems, and you wouldn't be asking this question!! The smallest brown dwarfs are just 1.3 times the mass of Jupiter.
One of the main differences is that our solar system is a flat disk (on the whole) whereas the Jovian system is like a cloud, with only 4 of its 63 known moons orbiting in a disk. These four (the galilean moons) are the moons that may have formed with the formation of Jupiter (similar to the planets forming around our star) and the rest are believed to be captured bodies.

So I guess the other guys are right, the main difference is that Jupiter wasn't large enough to 'fire up', but there are other differences.

Philip Said:

Was Jupiter once a micro solar system captured by our own bigger solar system?

We Answered:

Jupiter, while larger than all the other planets in our system put together, is still far too small to have ever been a star in its own rights. Furthermore, stars don't just "burn out". Depending on thier mass, they can undergo a number of different evolutions; many will go super-nova, spewing out unimaginable ammounts of heavy atoms and radiation, others will diminish into brown or whites "dwaves", still others will form black holes.

It might be possible (though incredibly unlikely) for a solar system to "ensnare" passing planetoids, but they would be unlikely to form stable orbits in the time that our solar system has been around.

It's an interesting idea, and although jupiter could never have been a star, it is proponderously unlikely, but not impossible, that it could have originated outside of our solar system.

Donald Said:

If there was a planet in our solar system between mars and jupiter, what type of planet would it be?

We Answered:

The planet between Jupitur and Mars would be a rock like planet indeed. Possibly like a moon of Jupiturs, or maybe a cold-mercury. However, Id rather call it a basic object floating around the sun. I will explain later.
The reason why there is no such object there is the fact that our obese pal in space, jupitur, hogs so much room, and has such a huge gravitational pull, that it kept pulling the rocks apart before they could collide enough to stick together. Some astronomers estimate that Its gravity flinged pieces of rock out of the solar system at insane speeds!
As for why I dont consider it a planet: One of the discarded theories about the asteroid belt is that it was a former planet that was blasted to bits. However, there would have been an object the size of our moon or larger that would have had to had done that. Also, adding the pieces together, the planet would have been smaller than pluto (which is smaller than our moon!) Therefore, astronomers stick with the theory above.

Angel Said:

What happens to the solar system if Jupiter is a brown dwarf?

We Answered:

Nothing. In theory, Jupiter might already be a very light brown dwarf. Nobody has a definition where the border between a gas giant and a brown dwarf really is.

That is because both Brown Dwarfs and Jupiter are only minimally researched currently and nobody can yet say, where the difference between both can be drawn.