The Godfather - Jupiter

Professor Brian Cox continues his exploration of the solar system with a visit to a planet that dwarfs all the others: Jupiter. Its enormous size gives it great power which has manipulated the other planets - a power both for good and bad that it wields to this day. Jupiter is not only the biggest, but also the oldest planet in the solar system. It alone witnessed the birth of the Sun and ever since its immense gravity has shaped the destiny of the other worlds. Soon after its birth, its orbit shifted inwards, bringing it ever closer to the Sun. As it moved, Jupiter destroyed embryonic worlds that may otherwise have created additional planets. Elsewhere, it created chaos in the asteroid belt, ensuring that no planet could form here. Only a tiny failed planet called Ceres remains today. Those planets that did survive didn’t escape. Jupiter used its power to draw material needed to form planets into the Sun, stunting the growth of Mars, a planet that could have grown as large as Earth. Indeed, Jupiter would have obliterated every last rocky world on its journey into the Sun, if its tussle with another giant - Saturn - had not brought it back from the brink. Today Jupiter’s great mass continues to be felt. It powers its moon Io, the most volcanically active body in the solar system, and continues to catapult asteroids and comets across the solar system. Jupiter may appear far enough away that it doesn’t pose much of a threat to us here on Earth, but as Brian reveals, its power lingers on, a hangover from a much darker past.