Samuel Chiltern answered
Besides being the largest planet in the Solar System, Jupiter also rotates faster than any other planet, achieving speeds of up to 45,300 kilometres an hour at the equator. This means that it has the shortest day of all the planets, taking only 9.925 hours.
However, this is astronomy, and things aren't normally as simple as that when it comes to studying the planets in detail!
The atmosphere on Jupiter moves at a different speed to the core, and the atmosphere at the polar extremes moves more slowly than at the equator.
When scientists were originally trying to establish how quickly the planet rotated, they tried to establish landmarks that they could track. Of course, Jupiter has no solid surface, so they tried to track the movement of the major storms, including the Great Red Spot, a continuous storm that's been raging for at least the past 200 years.
In the end, they had to track the fluctuations in Jupiter's magnetic field. This is considered the official measurement of the planet's axial rotation, and this is where the period and speed I mentioned at the start of my answer came from.
However, this is astronomy, and things aren't normally as simple as that when it comes to studying the planets in detail!
The atmosphere on Jupiter moves at a different speed to the core, and the atmosphere at the polar extremes moves more slowly than at the equator.
When scientists were originally trying to establish how quickly the planet rotated, they tried to establish landmarks that they could track. Of course, Jupiter has no solid surface, so they tried to track the movement of the major storms, including the Great Red Spot, a continuous storm that's been raging for at least the past 200 years.
In the end, they had to track the fluctuations in Jupiter's magnetic field. This is considered the official measurement of the planet's axial rotation, and this is where the period and speed I mentioned at the start of my answer came from.
