As a young planet, Jupiter abandoned its usual path and went barreling toward the inner solar system, until an ascending Saturn yanked it back into orbit, probably saving our nascent Earth.
Jupiter's "primordial dance" of billions of years ago is just one fascinating element in this episode from the documentary series.
The gas giant known for an Earth-sized red spot -- actually a centuries-raging megastorm -- is possessed of an overwhelming force of gravity that makes it "the bully of the solar system." Its influence likely sent a six-mile-wide asteroid our way 69 million years ago, causing extinction of the dinosaurs.
Three hundred times the mass of Earth, Jupiter may appear serene and marbled through telescopes, but it's cloaked with thousand-mile-deep clouds obscuring dramatic storm systems and, quite possibly, hailing or snowing ammonia. It's also got at least 80 moons, including the living hell of Io, which shoots lava streams some 200 miles above the surface.
The program says some interesting things about the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, most notably Ceres, the largest circling object in the zone, which boasted a global ocean before wayward Jupiter got too close, halting its development.
"Ceres was never able to graduate to full-fledged planet status," we're told, with Jupiter condemning it to "spend eternity as a cold, barren rock."
Jupiter's "primordial dance" of billions of years ago is just one fascinating element in this episode from the documentary series.
The gas giant known for an Earth-sized red spot -- actually a centuries-raging megastorm -- is possessed of an overwhelming force of gravity that makes it "the bully of the solar system." Its influence likely sent a six-mile-wide asteroid our way 69 million years ago, causing extinction of the dinosaurs.
Three hundred times the mass of Earth, Jupiter may appear serene and marbled through telescopes, but it's cloaked with thousand-mile-deep clouds obscuring dramatic storm systems and, quite possibly, hailing or snowing ammonia. It's also got at least 80 moons, including the living hell of Io, which shoots lava streams some 200 miles above the surface.
The program says some interesting things about the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, most notably Ceres, the largest circling object in the zone, which boasted a global ocean before wayward Jupiter got too close, halting its development.
"Ceres was never able to graduate to full-fledged planet status," we're told, with Jupiter condemning it to "spend eternity as a cold, barren rock."
