Ever since humans looked up at the night sky and noticed that some of the points of light moved, they have been aware of the planet Jupiter.

However, it was the invention of the telescope that let us know just how amazing Jupiter was.

And since then, we've sent eight probes to the planet to

help us unlock its secrets. Learn more about Jupiter, the largest planet in the

solar system, on this episode of Everything everywhere daily. The planet Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun. It's located in an average of 5.2 astronomical units away from the Sun,

with an astronomical unit being the average distance from the Earth to the Sun.

It orbits the Sun once every 11.8 years,

and a day on Jupiter is only about 11 hours.

The planet gets its name from the Roman god of the same name, who is the chief Roman deity.

It's the fourth brightest thing in the sky as seen from Earth, after the Sun, the Moon, and Venus.

These fun facts, however, about Jupiter are really not what make this planet special.

Probably the single most important fact about Jupiter is the fact that it is 2.5 times the mass of all other planets in the solar system combined.

Jupiter is huge. Some have called it a failed star, even though to be honest it's actually 75

times too small to start nuclear fusion. It would be more accurate to call it a

failed brown dwarf, which is a star that fails to ignite.

However, the cutoff for a Brown Dwarf is still about 13 times the mass of Jupiter.

Because of its mass, Jupiter was probably the first planet in the solar system to form.

It is believed to have started with a large

rocky core and then via gravitational attraction gathered up much of the gases in its

orbital zone. One theory of Jupiter's creation is known as the Grand TAC hypothesis, which suggests that Jupiter may have formed about 3.5 astronomical units away from the sun and then migrated inward to about 1.5 astronomical units, and then finally moving to its current location at 5.2 astronomical units.

Along the way, it may have been responsible for the destruction, collision, and creation of

smaller rocky planets closer to the sun, including Earth. This migration of

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