I have always been of the firm opinion that Jupiter is made of marble.
One need only glimpse this stunning planet—with its eddying colors, its mottled swirls, the patterned stripes that make it look as though someone took a paint-dipped brush to a bowl of water and swirled it around inside—to get this impression. I am told that Jupiter is made of gasses, similar to the composition of the sun, but that just does not seem right to me. Its surface is far too intricate to be made from something as simple, as incorporeal, as a concoction of gas. I am certain that if I were to go to Jupiter myself—to get close enough to touch it—that I would reach out my hand and feel a cool, smooth surface, like the marbles that children have long flicked, rolled, and bounced.

I am confident in my belief that, one day, my suspicion will be proven correct. Telescopes will become more powerful, spectral analyses will become more accurate, and space probes will beam back incontrovertible proof that the fifth planet from the sun is composed not of hydrogen, helium, methane, and ammonia, as most astrophysicists now claim, but of the same timeless substance from which were carved Michelangelo’s David, the Aphrodite of Milos, and the Lancellotti discus thrower. On that day, a great truth will become clear—the fact that, when it comes to something so vast, so ancient, so thoroughly incomprehensible as outer space, our most firmly held scientific theorems are but feeble attempts to explain that which we, with our limited human consciousness, may never be able to fully understand.

Perhaps, on a Jupiter made of marble, the laws of physics do not apply. Once science’s long-held beliefs about the composition of our solar system’s largest planet have been shown to be false, who knows what cosmological paradigms will be upended? They say that it is impossible to walk on Jupiter—that there is no firm surface, that the planet’s immense gravitational pull would drag you down into the center of the vast, swirling orb and utterly crush you. They say that, even if Jupiter were solid, you would not be able to walk on it—that its gravity would be so strong that you would not be able to lift your foot, that you would not even be able to stand up. But in a universe in which Jupiter is made of marble, anything is possible. In any case, I would be more than willing to try. I would be the first to volunteer to undertake the long journey to Earth’s cosmic sister, to touch down on the hard, banded surface, and to take that one small step that will mark the dawn of a new era in human space exploration. Wearing my padded boots, specially designed so as not to scuff the planet’s blemishlessness, I would stroll across the immense, flat marble plain, heading toward the luminous horizon, looking up at the faint rings and the myriad moons that orbit this variegated globe. Or, if I could not walk, if the overwhelming gravity of the planet made it so that I could not even stand, I would pull myself across the smooth surface, slowly sliding my body along the ground until, unencumbered by any friction (for how could there be any friction on a surface so smooth, so unblemished) I began to speed up—until I began to glide effortlessly across the dolomite landscape, traversing vast distances in the blink of an eye, exploring each and every corner of this until-then unfathomable planet, uncovering all of its many secrets.

Look up in the sky. What do you see? To me, the allure of space is the allure of the unknown—of the possibility to unlearn what we have learned and to un-know that which we think we know. It is the promise of change, of growth, of truth. It is the comfort of the idea that, no matter how stuck we may be, everything can change in an instant.
See you on Jupiter.