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 Project Jupiter
Amateur Astronomer
Weights Planet Jupiter
World
Series on Giant Planet Would Take Three Times More Muscle
 by Dan
Swanson
NEWS-PRESS October 23, 2003 -- An amateur astronomy project led by Eugene Lanning of
Nebraska City, Nebraska, determined the weight of the planet Jupiter
within
0.2 percent of the figure established by NASA. Lanning and other
members of the American Association of Amateur Astronomers tracked
four of Jupiter's 35 moons. Lanning collected data on the distance
between Jupiter and the moons and the time between peak movements
of the moons. He then used the gravitational constant of the
universe and Kepler's Third Law of Motion to determine the weight of
the gas planet. Based on Lanning's data, the weight of Jupiter
was determined at nearly 4.18 billion-billion-billion-pounds, about
317 times more than the entire Earth weighs. If the World Series
were played on Jupiter, a 5 ounce baseball would weigh over 12
ounces. If the ball were hit by a bat, Jupiter's gravity would yank
it from the air within a third of the distance the ball might have
traveled on Earth. For the ball to escape Jupiter's gravity,
Lanning surmised, it would have to travel about 48 miles per
second, or about 172,000 miles per second. "You wouldn't have all the home runs," he said. "The major leaguers would really be
earning their pay." The Jupiter Project was able to achieve a .03
percent accuracy on measuring the time between the movements of the
moon Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. "I was ecstatic. You
can't have many errors and still end up with that level of
accuracy," he said. During the project, Lanning read a report
in Sky & Telescope magazine that said two of the moons would pass
over each other, so that instead of seeing all four, earth observers
could only see three. Lanning applied the model he developed for the Jupiter Project to predict the time the event would
occur. He came within three minutes of the time listed in the
report. "It was an unexpected benefit," he said. "If you're
batting 1000, you must be doing something right somewhere down the
line." Lanning said he learned a lot from the project. "To me, it
was great fun and I got to help others processing the mathematics,"
he said. Dan Swanson is a reporter for the News-Press and may
be reached at dswanson@newwestnews.com
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