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Meet our neighbours: Jupiter

Created: 2025-08-04

Author(s):
Lina Canas

Let's build a tactile version of Jupiter, the biggest planet of our Solar System, using cheap, household items. Just like the other activities of the "Meet our Neighbours" series, the tactile Jupiter will be a great resource to explore a planet for both visually impaired and normal vision students.
NOTE: The "Meet our neighbours!" project is published in AstroEDU in this activity Collection. It was produced by NUCLIO and Europlanet and supported by Galileo Teaching Training Program and GalileoMobile. You can find more information at this Link

Materials

For each group bulding a tactile Jupiter:

One printed copy of the attached PDF files (Tactile_Jupiter.pdf and Tactile_Jupiter_Mold.pdf)
thin and thick fabric of different colors (for different zones of the surface)
wire (for the Great Red Spot)
sand (for the ring)
Glue and scissors

NOTE: These materials are only suggestions; all textures can be replaced by other local, easy to find, low-cost materials.

Goals

To explore the planet Jupiter through a tactile hands-on experience for visually impaired students and their non-visually impaired peers.

Learning Objectives

Students will explore and learn the characteristics of Jupiter using the tactile model: its different zones, the great red spot and its rings.

Background

General information
Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Its equatorial diameter is 142,800 km (11 times that of Earth) and its mass equals 318 times that of Earth. Its average distance from the Sun is 778 million kilometers, and it takes 11.9 years to complete its orbit.

With Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, Jupiter is part of the gaseous giant planets which are mainly composed of hydrogen (H2: 86%) and helium (He: 14%). It is believed that the core of the planet is a solid mixture of rocks and ices of a few times the mass of Earth.

The atmosphere also contains a rich mix of minor gaseous constituents, the most abundant being ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4), phosphine (PH3), and water vapor (H2O). Most of these gases freeze out in the upper atmosphere, forming a dense multilayer cloud cover about 100 km thick.

Jupiter has a powerful magnetic field, ten times stronger than that of Earth. Its magnetosphere – the region around the planet where its magnetic field is stronger than the interplanetary field – is the most extended object in the solar system. If one could see it with the naked eye, it would be appear five times larger than the Moon. Elementary particles (electrons and protons) coming from the Sun are trapped inside the magnetosphere and precipitate onto the atmosphere in the polar regions, creating intense aurora emissions.

Zones and belts
Because of the fast rotation of the planet (it makes a turn in less than 10 hours) and the strong winds above the cloud tops (up to 400 km/h near the equator), the clouds are organized in strips parallel to the equator, called “zones” and “belts” . In the zones, the air motion is upwards, and the upper cloud is mainly composed of whitish ammonia particles, while in the belts, the air motion is downwards, and the ammonia cloud is much thinner, allowing us to see the lower orange clouds coloured by sulphur.

Great Red Spot
Another significant atmospheric feature is the Great Red Spot, which has been observed for more than 400 years. It is a giant storm, a swirling cloud system probably extending several tens of kilometres deep. Its diameter is about three times that of Earth. Its reddish colour is not completely understood, but it is believed to be due to phosphorus- or sulphur-containing minor gases.

Rings
Jupiter is surrounded by fifty natural satellites as well as a system of tenuous rings. The four largest satellites – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, called the Galilean satellites – can be observed from Earth with a small telescope. They were discovered in 1609 by the famous Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. On the opposite, the rings cannot be seen from Earth; they were detected in 1979, thanks to long-exposure images made by the Voyager probes as they passed by the planet.

Full Description

Prior to the activity

Print both Jupiter and Jupiter mold PDFs for each group, and prepare the materials listed above.
Ask students what they know about Jupiter, introducing it as the gas giant planet of the Solar System. Tell students they will be making models of the planet to investigate its different features.

During the activity

Gather the children in groups of 5 elements – visually impaired and non-visually impaired (ideally three non-visually impaired to 2 visually impaired);
Distribute materials accordingly;
Close supervision is important. Follow each group and explain each of the tactile elements and their correspondence to each object feature.
Understand the different needs of each group of students to promote interaction between the students during the building of the tactile image – visually impaired students need to be familiarized with the different materials involved.
Give enough time to follow instructions and build the tactile image.

Building the tactile Jupiter

Step 1
Cut the outer section of the printed Tactile_Jupiter_Mold.pdf;

Step 2
Place it on top of the thin fabric and with a pen outline this shape;

Step 3
Cut the fabric accordingly to the area outlined;

Step 4
Place abundant glue on Tactile_Jupiter.pdf that corresponds to the cut area;

Step 5
Place the fabric on top of the glue and wait for it to dry.

Step 6
Cut section 1 on Tactile_Jupiter_Mold (only use this numbered section);

Step 7
Place it on top of the rough fabric and with a pen outline this shapes;

Step 8
Cut these shapes accordingly;

Step 9
Glue the different sections on top of the glued fabric;

Step 10
Curl the thin thread until it has the same size of round shape and glue it on top of the denoted correspondent section;

Step 11
Place the glue on top of the dark area denoting the ring and place the sand on top of the glue;

Wait for the image to dry. This may take a while.

Exploring the tactile Jupiter

There are several ways in which you can explore the scientific content of the tactile schematic images. If you’re presenting the final tactile image to the students, first let them explore and feel the different textures. Questions will arise as the students explore; encourage them to write their questions down and share them with the other groups. Read “Background Information” to understand the different features present in Jupiter's schematic tactile image, and share with the students as they ask about them, or (if you have more time), prompt each group to choose a feature to learn more about and then have them present to the other groups in the class.

In the image above, you can identify the following features:

(1) and (2) zones and belts materialized by alternate fabric strips of different texture on the tactile imagethe overall the surface of the planet;
(3) the Great Red Spot materialized in the by the twirling thread on the tactile image;
(4) rings materialized by the grains of sand along the equator of the planet on the tactile image

Evaluation

Call out a feature of Jupiter (different bands, the great red spot and its rings). For each feature give a brief description. e.g. - This is a giant storm on the surface (Answer: the Great Red spot).

Ask the class to suggest how Jupiter is similar and different form the Earth and why.