How long would it take to get to Jupiter?
75 yearsby jet, without stopping
Jupiter comes within 588 million km of Earth at closest approach. In a straight line at airliner speed that's 75 years of continuous flight. The fastest spacecraft ever launched would need 419 days.
▶ See how far Jupiter really is
The honest timetable
Family car (100 km/h)
671 years
Jet airliner (900 km/h)
75 years
New Horizons — fastest launch ever (58,500 km/h)
419 days
Light (299,792 km/s)
33 minutes
Those are straight-line times at the moment of closest approach — the absolute best case. Real spacecraft can't fly straight there: they follow long curved transfer orbits, sling around planets for free speed, and have to slow down at the other end. NASA’s Juno took just under five years to reach Jupiter (2011–2016).
Jupiter’s mass is 2.5× all the other planets together. The Great Red Spot is a storm about as wide as Earth that has raged for at least two centuries.
See the gap for yourself: open Jupiter in the interactive view, switch to 1:1 scale, and try to find Earth from there.
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✓ Facts verified July 2026
Every figure on this page is a real, rounded value checked against primary sources. Found something out of date? See how we keep it accurate.