The silver bullet spaceship rocked back and forth before it went to a complete stop. The little passengers inside frantically hustled to get control of their ship and after the craft stabilized they looked out the observation port wide-eyed, amazed at what they were staring at. Peter, Emily and Mia were staring at another planet.

“I know that planet!” Mia exclaimed excitedly, her blonde hair bobbing up and down.

“It’s Jupiter.” Emily said matter-of-factly. Being the older of twins by just four minutes, it was often joked about in the family that the gap is really four years. Emily was more serious and cautious, while Mia was more of a thrill seeker and often acts on impulse.

Peter, the twins’ cousin who loves to read all kinds of books, started to check the ship’s readings of Jupiter. “Well, it is 318 times bigger than Earth and the reading of its insides says it has a small rocky core which is completely surrounded by metallic hydrogen and then enveloped by liquid hydrogen and then again covered by gaseous hydrogen. Yup, it’s Jupiter alright.”

Mia and Em looked at each other and then blinked at Peter “We know!” “Just look at the Great Red Spot!” Mia gleefully quipped. “It’s huge!”

“It is actually a violent storm and it’s a lot larger than Earth” Emily said. “Our science teacher Miss Headly said it was first seen by astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Robert Hooke about four hundred years ago.”

“Actually, it’s an anti-cyclonic storm on the planet and has lasted 430 years at the very least.” Peter contributed.

Mia’s eyes grew large as saucers and excitedly pronounced, “My friends will be blown away when I tell them on Monday morning that I saw Jupiter and its red spot!”

“Well, there are lots more about Jupiter than meets the eye,” Em responded as she reached for her electronic note pad inside her pink backpack. “For instance, do you see the white spot just below the Great Red Spot?” Mia nodded and Peter peered over Emily’s shoulder, “Well, it’s another storm and it is almost as wide as our planet Earth. It rotates counter clockwise within about six days.”

“Actually Em,” Peter said, “Jupiter has a lot of storms like the Great Red Spot and that white spot. It also has some brown spots, you know. The white spot is made up of much cooler clouds though than the brown ones and the Red Spot. These storms are common in Jupiter’s surface and can last for hours and for some, even hundreds of years.”

“Wow! Mia said and too excited to contain herself, snatched her electronic handheld reader. “Hey, check this out, you two. My reader says that Jupiter makes a complete rotation on its axis in less than 10 hours. A day in Jupiter is less than 10 hours! Imagine how short school days would be there!”

“Uhm Mia, I don’t think you would want to live in Jupiter” Emily bemused. “It’s not safe for humans and other living things. In fact, the only spacecraft to actually have descended into its atmosphere was NASA’s Galileo probe. It first circled the planet in 1995 and then after taking a lot of different measurements from orbit, Galileo itself descended in 2003.”

“I know Em, I was just thinking how cool it would be to have less than 10 hours in one day.” Mia shrugged.

“Speaking of hours, we’ve been here long enough, how about let’s check if the ship’s guidance systems are ok so that we can find the right wormhole and get back home?” Peter asked the twins.

“Sounds good to me!” the two girls said at the same time.

Peter started checking the propulsion system to make sure that their spaceship will reach enough speed to go through another wormhole “Ok, all systems go. Let’s all buckle up and take another shortcut.”