By contrast, Jupiter is extraordinarily reflective because it is covered over with clouds. Suspended crystals of methane and ammonia reflect the sun's light very efficiently, giving Jupiter a whopping albedo of 0.51. Just over half of the light it receives from the sun bounces back into space. Even though Jupiter is 480 million miles from the sun, a hefty chunk of the planet's light gets beamed back in our direction. Jupiter is so different from Earth that its hard to think of them both as planets.
Earth is, of course, mostly a ball of rock and metals.
Jupiter has no solid surface at all. Jupiter is mostly composed of hydrogen, the simplest element in the universe and the main constituent of the stars, our own star, the sun, included. Under its thin cloud layer, the hydrogen is a densely packed liquid. Another of Jupiter's oddities is its rate of spin. Our planet Earth rotates once on its axis every day.