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Last Post 10/21/2011 9:24 AM by  Kris Sigsbee
Jupiter & the Sun
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Anonymous





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10/20/2011 8:32 AM

    Jackie (SRE)

    How many Jupiters would fit inside the Sun?


    Kris Sigsbee



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    Posts:415
    Basic Member


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    10/21/2011 9:24 AM

    Hi Jackie,

    To figure out how many Jupiters would fit inside the Sun, we just need to compare the volumes of Jupiter and the Sun. If we assume that both Jupiter and the Sun are spherical, then their volumes can be determined from V=(4x pi x R^3)/3. The radius of the Sun is about R=695,000 km, so the volume of the Sun is about V=1.4x10^18 km^3. I wrote this down in scientific notation (the x10^18 part) because it is kind of a pain to type 1,400,000,000,000,000,000 (I hope I counted my zeroes correctly!). The radius of Jupiter is about R=69,911 km, so Jupiter's volume is about 1.4x10^15 km^3. If we divide the volume of the Sun by the volume of Jupiter, we get about 1x10^3, which means that 1,000 Jupiters would fit inside the Sun.

    Kris


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