Is jupiter really 70000 times larger than earth's moon?

Question

I watched a news today and they said "a bright object near the moon" is jupiter and it is 70000 times bigger than earth's moon. It also said that it takes about one second from earth to moon, and 35 minutes from earth to jupiter.

I mean, if i calculated right, 35 minutes are 7000 seconds. So, jupiter has to be 7000 times farther than that of earth's moon to be the same size.

The bottom line is jupiter should look much bigger than earth's moon. So, why did the news said "a bright object" is jupiter, which seems to be pretty small?

Answer 1

Jupiter is about 40 times larger than the moon.  It is also about   2000 times further away, so it looks 40/2000 = 1/50 as large.  You can't really tell by looking at it that it's anything but a point of light, but if you get out a pair of binoculars you'll see it pretty well.

35 minutes is about 2000 seconds, not 7000 seconds.

Answer 2

interesting.. because in every book or website I read on.. it always says something different..

but think it as.. jupiter is 300 times bigger than earth.. and moon is only 1/4 size of earth.. so calculate it.. (I'm bad at maths lol)

Answer 3

yep.  maybe more, in fact.

consider Jupiter, at 88,000 miles in diameter is 11 times wider than the earth.

and earth, at 8,000 miles in diameter is 4 times wider than the 2,000 mile wide moon.

now when considering "bigger", normally that refers to volume, which is a cube function.

so, multiplying, we get

11^3*4^3 = 85,184 times bigger.

just for reference, i always think of Jupiter as 1000 times bigger than the earth, and the sun as 1000 times bigger than Jupiter.

and, Jupiter is larger than all of the other planets in the solar system combined.