CHAP. V - JUPITER, THE GIANT OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Summary

Passing over the zone of asteroids, we come now to the noblest of all the planets—the giant Jupiter. If bulk is to be the measure of a planet's fitness to be the abode of living creatures, then must Jupiter be inhabited by the most favoured races existing throughout the whole range of the solar system. Exceeding our earth some 1,230 times in volume, and more than 300 times in mass, this magnificent orb was rightly selected by Brewster as the crowning proof of the relative insignificance of the earth in the scale of creation—assuming only that we can indeed gauge the purposes of the Creator by the familiar tests of measure and weight.

Or if we estimate Jupiter rather by the forces inherent in his system, if we contemplate the enormous rapidity with which his vast bulk whirls round upon its axis, or trace the stately motion with which he sweeps onward on his orbit, or measure the influences by which he sways his noble family of satellites, we are equally impressed with the feeling that here we have the prince of all the planets, the orb which, of all others in the solar scheme, suggests to us conceptions of the noblest forms of life.

The very symmetry and perfection of the system which circles round Jupiter has led many to believe that he must be inhabited by races superior in intelligence to any which people our earth.