Jupiter's massiveness before Earth baffles netizens; check out viral video

Planetary science has managed to grip the public yet again after a video comparing the planets by size went viral on social media. Shared by planetary scientist James O'Donoghue, the video on Twitter is an animation featuring all the eight planets of our solar system next to the nearest star- the sun. According to O'Donoghue, the short clip is about celestial objects in terms of "scale in size, rotation speed and tilt" and needless to say, the visual is truly mind-boggling. Check out the video below.

In the viral clip, which also includes the Moon, Pluto and Ceres, the planets are cornered together while they spin at their respective speeds. Although it is known that there are four planets significantly more massive than our Earth, the video truly helps put things into perspective. However, what's most interesting is the sheer size of the largest planet in our solar system- Jupiter- and the pace of its spin. When compared to the rest of the celestial bodies, Jupiter completely overwhelms others but still falls short before the sun. 

Since it is clear how fast Jupiter spins, O'Donoghue, who is a former NASA employee and currently works for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), revealed that a day on the gas giant lasts just nine hours and 56 minutes. "In the early solar system, it grew from loads of Sun-orbiting material, converting the orbital momentum into spin angular momentum. Bigger planets are likely to be fast for this reason," he tweeted.

As you can see, it's hard to mark out planets smaller than Uranus when fully zoomed out. Shared on April 27, the video has garnered over 15 million views and continues to baffle netizens. 

Fun facts about Jupiter

Other than being the largest planet and having a short day, Jupiter has several other interesting characteristics. According to NASA, Jupiter is 11 times wider than Earth so if our planet were the size of a nickel, Jupiter would be about as big as a basketball. Besides, it takes 43 minutes for sunlight to travel from the Sun to Jupiter as compared to about eight minutes on Earth and one year on the gas giant is equal to twelve Earth years.