But if we could think that there is any solid nucleus, or core, in the body of Jupiter, it would seem, on account of the slight mean density of the planet, that it can not lie so near the visible surface, but must be at a depth of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of miles.

Since the telescope is unable to penetrate the cloudy envelope we can only guess at the actual constitution of the interior of Jupiter's globe.

In a spirit of mere speculative curiosity it has been suggested that deep under the clouds of the great planet there may be a comparatively small solid globe, even a habitable world, closed round by a firmament all its own, whose vault, raised 30,000 or 40,000 miles above the surface of the imprisoned planet, appears only an unbroken dome, too distant to reveal its real nature to watchers below, except, perhaps, under telescopic scrutiny; enclosing, as in a shell, a transparent atmosphere, and deriving its illumination partly from the sunlight that may filter through, but mainly from some luminous source within.
But is not Jupiter almost equally fascinating to the imagination, if we dismiss all attempts to picture a humanly impossible world shut up within it, and turn rather to consider what its future may be, guided by the not unreasonable hypothesis that, because of its immense size and mass, it is still in a chaotic condition?
Mention has been made of the resemblance of Jupiter to the sun by virtue of their similar manner of rotation.

This is not the only reason for looking upon Jupiter as being, in some respects, almost as much a solar as a planetary body.

Its exceptional brightness rather favors the view that a small part of the light by which it shines comes from its own incandescence.