Jupiter, the largest planet orbiting the sun, used to be much bigger and stronger when the solar system was just beginning to take shape, a pair of astronomers say. Two scientists at Caltech and ...

The celestial objects are so small, they're not even among Jupiter's four famous Galilean moons, which does include Io.But Amalthea and Thebe orbit the planet even closer than Io and have slightly ...

But Amalthea and Thebe orbit the planet even closer than Io and have slightly tilted orbits that allowed the astronomers to analyze "small orbital discrepancies" to calculate Jupiter's original size.

Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, ... These precise measurements came partly from studying Amalthea) and Thebe’s slightly tilted orbits.

Almathea and Thebe respectively circle Jupiter at slightly tilted orbits roughly 112,400 and 138,000 miles above the planet’s cloudtops.

Because Amalthea and Thebe have slightly tilted orbits, Batygin and Adams analyzed these small orbital discrepancies to calculate Jupiter's original size: approximately twice its current radius ...

Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet, used to be even bigger, according to a new study. The cloud of gas and dust from which the sun and planets formed dissipated around 4.5 billion years ago.

Instead of relying on uncertain estimates, like how fast gas was collected by early planets, they turned to two of Jupiter's smallest and often overlooked moons: Amalthea and Thebe.

A new study reveals early Jupiter was twice its current size with a magnetic field 50 times stronger. Skip to main content. Open menu Close menu. Space. ... Amalthea and Thebe.

Jupiter, roughly 562 million miles from Earth today, has nearly 100 moons. But Batygin and his collaborator Fred Adams' research focused on two of the smaller ones, Amalthea and Thebe.Both are ...

Jupiter is already the biggest planet by far in our solar system, but new research suggests it was somehow once even larger than it is now.. Twice as large, in fact. To put that into context ...