15.08.2019
Jupiter may have had a head-on collision with a massive protoplanet
Explains the odd distribution of material found by the Juno orbiter.
Planet-forming disks start out as a mix of dust and gas, but the gas doesn't stick around for long. As the star at their center ignites, the radiation it emits starts driving off the gas, eventually leaving a disk with nothing but dust behind. That creates a narrow window for the formation of gas giants, which have to grow big enough to start sweeping in gas before the star drives it all off.
Our current models suggest that the best way to do this is to start with a large solid body, roughly 10 times the mass of Earth. That's big enough to draw in gas quickly and start a runaway process by which the ever-increasing mass pulls in more material from farther away in the disk. This would suggest that, buried deep below the clouds and layers of metallic hydrogen on Jupiter, there's a solid core that would dwarf the Earth if it were ever stripped of all the material above it.
Among other things, the Juno mission was intended to test this idea by studying the gravitational field of the giant planet. But the data it has been sending back suggests something strange is going on inside Jupiter, with more heavy material outside the immediate core area than we'd expect. Now, an international team of researchers is providing a possible explanation: Jupiter's core was shattered by a head-on collision with a massive protoplanet.
What lies beneath
We obviously can't directly image what's going on inside Jupiter. Instead, we have to figure out what's there based on inferences made from the planet's gravitational field. And Juno was the first probe specifically designed to improve our understanding of that gravitational field. While further data is still coming in, a preliminary analysis suggests that one explanation for what we're seeing is that the planet has a core that the new paper describes as "dilute." Instead of the heavier, solid material being concentrated at the core, some of the heavier elements appear to be spread widely across the planet's interior, reaching up to about halfway to the planet's surface.
How that happened is not at all clear, given that we think the only way for a planet like Jupiter to happen is to start with a solid core. It's possible that further Juno data will indicate that a diffuse core is unlikely. Alternatively, our models of planet formation could be wrong. But the researchers start with the premise that everything is correct and that there's something unexpected going on in Jupiter's interior.
One option is that the metallic hydrogen layer of Jupiter has gradually eroded the core, but we don't know whether metallic hydrogen is capable of that or how heavier elements would mix in it. Instead, the authors consider the possibility that Jupiter's core was disrupted by a collision, much like the one that formed the Earth-Moon system—although completely unlike it in scale.
Collisions could be driven by Jupiter's formation itself. A 10-Earth-mass core is only about 5% of Jupiter's final mass, and the runaway process that surrounded it with gas would have enhanced its gravitational pull by a factor of 30 in less than a million years. Any other bodies nearby could be drawn in to a collision. And since Jupiter's core is thought to have formed via a series of collisions among smaller bodies, there's a reasonable chance there was something nearby that could undergo a collision.
To test this idea, the researchers ran a large number of simulations of the early Solar System, varying the precise configuration of Jupiter and any nearby orbital bodies. They found that in many of these simulations, the growth of Jupiter caused anything nearby to cross orbits, frequently resulting in collisions. Because of the immense pull of Jupiter, most of the collisions ended up being head-on, sending the protoplanet directly to the core of Jupiter.
Core shattering
They then turned to a different set of simulations, looking into what happened to the core of Jupiter as a result. The exact details depend on the size of what hits Jupiter and the size of the giant planet at the time of the impact. The simulation they ran in detail involves Jupiter being run into by an eight-Earth-mass core surrounded by two Earth masses of gas. Smaller objects, including Earth-sized protoplanets, would disintegrate in the atmosphere before reaching the core.
Despite the staggering scale of this collision, it only adds a small amount to the total energy delivered to Jupiter during its formation. But it does change the energetics of the core itself, which begins to oscillate. And convection starts bringing the products of these oscillations higher up into the planet's envelope. Within a matter of a few days, Jupiter settles into a state where its core is diffuse and extends nearly half-way to the surface of the planet.
Snapshots of the collision simulation.
Of course, this event occurred over four billion years ago, and it would have to have remained stable for the intervening time to be detected by Juno. The researchers found that this was possible if the internal temperature of Jupiter stabilized at 30,000 Kelvin. Any hotter and convection becomes high enough to eliminate the gradient between the core and its surroundings, which stabilizes the presence of heavier material above the core. Any cooler and convection isn't strong enough, and heavier material settles back into the core.
Because most planets are thought to have been built by multiple collisions among protoplanets and smaller bodies, the authors think it's worth exploring whether diffuse cores could be a common feature of gas giants. There have been a number of giant exoplanets that appear to have high metal content in their atmospheres, which might be the product of similar events.
There's no obvious way to test these things at the moment, and there's still a chance that further data from Juno will suggest alternate explanations. But if the idea holds up, planetary scientists will undoubtedly start considering the implications of these collisions and might come up with some overt indication of the marks they leave on gas giants.
Quelle: arsTechnica
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Update: 18.09.2019
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NASA's Juno Mission Checks Out Eclipse on Jupiter
All is well on our largest neighbor; NASA's Juno spacecraft just managed to spot the shadow of Jupiter's moon, Io, passing over its marbled clouds.
The Juno mission made its 22nd close skim over the gas giant around Sept. 11, when the celestial geometry was just right for Io to slip between the sun and the planet during one of its rapid-fire circuits of Jupiter. (The moon takes just 1.77 days to orbit the planet.)
Io is the most volcanic world in our solar system, thanks to heat generated by the close tug of Jupiter's massive gravity. Of Jupiter's four large moons, Io orbits closest to the planet, allowing it to cast a vast shadow on the gas giant.
NASA's Juno spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter for more than three years, making a close approach every 53 days. Scientifically, the spacecraft's priorities are a host of instruments that are designed to study the planet's atmosphere and interior.
But also onboard Juno is a camera; All of the raw images that camera captures are uploaded online, where volunteer image processors get to work turning the raw files into something beautiful, informative, or both.
That means that while we wait for scientists to analyze the rest of Juno's data, we can enjoy stunning images of Jupiter, like these eclipse shots. The images mimic photographs taken from space of eclipses here on Earth, when the moon's shadow crosses the planet.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 3.10.2019
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NASA's Juno Prepares to Jump Jupiter's Shadow
This animated gif depicts the point of view of NASA's Juno spacecraft during its eclipse-free approach to the gas giant Nov. 3, 2019. The Sun is depicted as the yellow dot rising up just to left of the planet. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SWRI
Last night, NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter successfully executed a 10.5-hour propulsive maneuver - extraordinarily long by mission standards. The goal of the burn, as it's known, will keep the solar-powered spacecraft out of what would have been a mission-ending shadow cast by Jupiter on the spacecraft during its next close flyby of the planet on Nov. 3, 2019.
Juno began the maneuver yesterday, on Sept. 30, at 7:46 p.m. EDT (4:46 p.m. PDT) and completed it early on Oct. 1. Using the spacecraft's reaction-control thrusters, the propulsive maneuver lasted five times longer than any previous use of that system. It changed Juno's orbital velocity by 126 mph (203 kph) and consumed about 160 pounds (73 kilograms) of fuel. Without this maneuver, Juno would have spent 12 hours in transit across Jupiter's shadow - more than enough time to drain the spacecraft's batteries. Without power, and with spacecraft temperatures plummeting, Juno would likely succumb to the cold and be unable to awaken upon exit.
"With the success of this burn, we are on track to jump the shadow on Nov. 3," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Jumping over the shadow was an amazingly creative solution to what seemed like a fatal geometry. Eclipses are generally not friends of solar-powered spacecraft. Now instead of worrying about freezing to death, I am looking forward to the next science discovery that Jupiter has in store for Juno."
Juno has been navigating in deep space since 2011. It entered an initial 53-day orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Originally, the mission planned to reduce the size of its orbit a few months later to decrease the period between science flybys of the gas giant to every 14 days. But the project team recommended to NASA to forgo the main engine burn due to concerns about the spacecraft's fuel delivery system. Juno's 53-day orbit provides all the science as originally planned; it just takes longer to do so. The spacecraft's longer life at Jupiter is what led to the need to avoid the gas giant's shadow.
"Pre-launch mission planning did not anticipate a lengthy eclipse that would plunge our solar-powered spacecraft into darkness," said Ed Hirst, Juno project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "That we could plan and execute the necessary maneuver while operating in Jupiter's orbit is a testament to the ingenuity and skill of our team, along with the extraordinary capability and versatility of our spacecraft."
NASA's JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. The Italian Space Agency (ASI) contributed two instruments, a Ka-band frequency translator (KaT) and the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM). Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 13.12.2019
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NASA's Juno Navigators Enable Jupiter Cyclone Discovery
Jupiter's south pole has a new cyclone. The discovery of the massive Jovian tempest occurred on Nov. 3, 2019, during the most recent data-gathering flyby of Jupiter by NASA's Juno spacecraft. It was the 22nd flyby during which the solar-powered spacecraft collected science data on the gas giant, soaring only 2,175 miles (3,500 kilometers) above its cloud tops. The flyby also marked a victory for the mission team, whose innovative measures kept the solar-powered spacecraft clear of what could have been a mission-ending eclipse.
"The combination of creativity and analytical thinking has once again paid off big time for NASA," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "We realized that the orbit was going to carry Juno into Jupiter's shadow, which could have grave consequences because we're solar powered. No sunlight means no power, so there was real risk we might freeze to death. While the team was trying to figure out how to conserve energy and keep our core heated, the engineers came up with a completely new way out of the problem: Jump Jupiter's shadow. It was nothing less than a navigation stroke of genius. Lo and behold, first thing out of the gate on the other side, we make another fundamental discovery."
When Juno first arrived at Jupiter in July 2016, its infrared and visible-light cameras discovered giant cyclones encircling the planet's poles - nine in the north and six in the south. Were they, like their Earthly siblings, a transient phenomenon, taking only weeks to develop and then ebb? Or could these cyclones, each nearly as wide as the continental U.S., be more permanent fixtures?
With each flyby, the data reinforced the idea that five windstorms were swirling in a pentagonal pattern around a central storm at the south pole and that the system seemed stable. None of the six storms showed signs of yielding to allow other cyclones to join in.
"It almost appeared like the polar cyclones were part of a private club that seemed to resist new members," said Bolton.
Then, during Juno's 22nd science pass, a new, smaller cyclone churned to life and joined the fray.
The Life of a Young Cyclone
"Data from Juno's Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper [JIRAM] instrument indicates we went from a pentagon of cyclones surrounding one at the center to a hexagonal arrangement," said Alessandro Mura, a Juno co-investigator at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome. "This new addition is smaller in stature than its six more established cyclonic brothers: It's about the size of Texas. Maybe JIRAM data from future flybys will show the cyclone growing to the same size as its neighbors."
Probing the weather layer down to 30 to 45 miles (50 to 70 kilometers) below Jupiter's cloud tops, JIRAM captures infrared light emerging from deep inside Jupiter. Its data indicate wind speeds of the new cyclone average 225 mph (362 kph) - comparable to the velocity found in its six more established polar colleagues.
The spacecraft's JunoCam also obtained visible-light imagery of the new cyclone. The two datasets shed light on atmospheric processes of not just Jupiter but also fellow gas giants Saturn, Uranus and Neptune as well as those of giant exoplanets now being discovered; they even shed light on atmospheric processes of Earth's cyclones.
"These cyclones are new weather phenomena that have not been seen or predicted before," said Cheng Li, a Juno scientist from the University of California, Berkeley. "Nature is revealing new physics regarding fluid motions and how giant planet atmospheres work. We are beginning to grasp it through observations and computer simulations. Future Juno flybys will help us further refine our understanding by revealing how the cyclones evolve over time."
Shadow Jumping
Of course, the new cyclone would never have been discovered if Juno had frozen to death during the eclipse when Jupiter got between the spacecraft and the Sun's heat and light rays.
Juno has been navigating in deep space since 2011. It entered an initial 53-day orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Originally, the mission planned to reduce the size of its orbit a few months later to shorten the period between science flybys of the gas giant to every 14 days. But the project team recommended to NASA to forgo the main engine burn due to concerns about the spacecraft's fuel delivery system. Juno's 53-day orbit provides all the science as originally planned; it just takes longer to do so. Juno's longer life at Jupiter is what led to the need to avoid Jupiter's shadow.
"Ever since the day we entered orbit around Jupiter, we made sure it remained bathed in sunlight 24/7," said Steve Levin, Juno project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Our navigators and engineers told us a day of reckoning was coming, when we would go into Jupiter's shadow for about 12 hours. We knew that for such an extended period without power, our spacecraft would suffer a similar fate as the Opportunity rover, when the skies of Mars filled with dust and blocked the Sun's rays from reaching its solar panels."
Without the Sun's rays providing power, Juno would be chilled below tested levels, eventually draining its battery cells beyond recovery. So the navigation team set devised a plan to "jump the shadow," maneuvering the spacecraft just enough so its trajectory would miss the eclipse.
"In deep space, you are either in sunlight or your out of sunlight; there really is no in-between," said Levin.
The navigators calculated that if Juno performed a rocket burn weeks in advance of Nov. 3, while the spacecraft was as far in its orbit from Jupiter as it gets, they could modify its trajectory enough to give the eclipse the slip. The maneuver would utilize the spacecraft's reaction control system, which wasn't initially intended to be used for a maneuver of this size and duration.
On Sept. 30, at 7:46 p.m. EDT (4:46 p.m. PDT), the reaction control system burn began. It ended 10 ½ hours later. The propulsive maneuver - five times longer than any previous use of that system - changed Juno's orbital velocity by 126 mph (203 kph) and consumed about 160 pounds (73 kilograms) of fuel. Thirty-four days later, the spacecraft's solar arrays continued to convert sunlight into electrons unabated as Juno prepared to scream once again over Jupiter's cloud tops.
"Thanks to our navigators and engineers, we still have a mission," said Bolton. "What they did is more than just make our cyclone discovery possible; they made possible the new insights and revelations about Jupiter that lie ahead of us."
NASA's JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Italian Space Agency (ASI) contributed the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 19.02.2020
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Findings From NASA's Juno Update Jupiter Water Mystery
The JunoCam imager aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this image of Jupiter's southern equatorial region on Sept. 1, 2017. The image is oriented so Jupiter's poles (not visible) run left-to-right of frame. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
The mission publishes its first stream of data on the amount of water in Jupiter's atmosphere - the first findings on the gas giant's water since the agency's 1995 Galileo mission.
NASA's Juno mission has provided its first science results on the amount of water in Jupiter's atmosphere. Published recently in the journal Nature Astronomy, the Juno results estimate that at the equator, water makes up about 0.25% of the molecules in Jupiter's atmosphere - almost three times that of the Sun. These are also the first findings on the gas giant's abundance of water since the agency's 1995 Galileo mission suggested Jupiter might be extremely dry compared to the Sun (the comparison is based not on liquid water but on the presence of its components, oxygen and hydrogen, present in the Sun).
An accurate estimate of the total amount of water in Jupiter's atmosphere has been on the wish lists of planetary scientists for decades: The figure in the gas giant represents a critical missing piece to the puzzle of our solar system's formation. Jupiter was likely the first planet to form, and it contains most of the gas and dust that wasn't incorporated into the Sun.
The leading theories about its formation rest on the amount of water the planet soaked up.Water abundance also has important implications for the gas giant's meteorology (how wind currents flow on Jupiter) and internal structure. While lightning - a phenomenon typically fueled by moisture - detected on Jupiter by Voyager and other spacecraft implied the presence of water, an accurate estimate of the amount of water deep within Jupiter's atmosphere remained elusive.
Thick white clouds are present in this JunoCam image of Jupiter's equatorial zone. At microwave frequencies, these clouds are transparent, allowing Juno's Microwave Radiometer to measure water deep into Jupiter's atmosphere. The image was acquired during Juno's flyby on Dec. 16, 2017.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
Before the Galileo probe stopped transmitting 57 minutes into its Jovian descent in December 1995, it radioed out spectrometer measurements of the amount of water in the gas giant's atmosphere down to a depth of about 75 miles (120 kilometers), where the atmospheric pressure reached about 320 pounds per square inch (22 bar). The scientists working on the data were dismayed to find ten times less water than expected.
Even more surprising: The amount of water the Galileo probe measured appeared to be still increasing at the greatest depth measured, far below where theories suggest the atmosphere should be well mixed. In a well-mixed atmosphere, the water content is constant across the region and more likely to represent a global average; in other words, it's more likely to be representative of water planetwide. When combined with an infrared map obtained at the same time by a ground-based telescope, the results suggested the probe mission may have just been unlucky, sampling an unusually dry and warm meteorological spot on Jupiter.
"Just when we think we have things figured out, Jupiter reminds us how much we still have to learn," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Juno's surprise discovery that the atmosphere was not well mixed even well below the cloud tops is a puzzle that we are still trying to figure out. No one would have guessed that water might be so variable across the planet."
Measuring Water From Above
A rotating, solar-powered spacecraft, Juno launched in 2011. Because of the Galileo probe experience, the mission seeks to obtain water abundance readings across large regions of the immense planet. A new kind of instrument for deep space planetary exploration, Juno's Microwave Radiometer (MWR) observes Jupiter from above using six antennas that measure atmospheric temperature at multiple depths simultaneously. The Microwave Radiometer takes advantage of the fact that water absorbs certain wavelengths of microwave radiation, the same trick used by microwave ovens to quickly heat food. The measured temperatures are used to constrain the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere, as both molecules absorb microwave radiation.
The Juno science team used data collected during Juno's first eight science flybys of Jupiter to generate the findings. They initially concentrated on the equatorial region because the atmosphere there appears more well-mixed, even at depth, than in other regions. From its orbital perch, the radiometer was able to collect data from a far greater depth into Jupiter's atmosphere than the Galileo probe - 93 miles (150 kilometers), where the pressure reaches about 480 psi (33 bar).
"We found the water in the equator to be greater than what the Galileo probe measured," said Cheng Li, a Juno scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. "Because the equatorial region is very unique at Jupiter, we need to compare these results with how much water is in other regions."
Northward Bound
Juno's 53-day orbit is slowly moving northward, as intended, bringing more of Jupiter's northern hemisphere into sharper focus with each flyby. The science team is eager to see how atmospheric water content varies by latitude and region, as well as what the cyclone-rich poles can tell them about the gas giant's global water abundance.
Juno's 24th science flyby of Jupiter occurred on Feb 17. The next science flyby takes place on April 10, 2020.
"Every science flyby is an event of discovery," said Bolton. "With Jupiter there is always something new. Juno has taught us an important lesson: We need to get up close and personal to a planet to test our theories."
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Italian Space Agency contributed the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper and the Ka-Band translator system. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.
Surprise! There's more water on Jupiter than anyone thought
Jupiter appears to have more water than anyone expected.
Newly released data from NASA's Juno probe shows that water may make up about 0.25% of the molecules in the atmosphere over Jupiter's equator. While that doesn't sound like much, the calculation is based on a prevalence of water's components, hydrogen and oxygen, three times more than at the sun. The new measurements Juno obtained are much higher than a previous mission suggested.
The surprise result has scientists delving deep again into results from NASA's Galileo mission to Jupiter, which obtained drier results in 1995 when engineers deliberately threw the spacecraft into Jupiter's atmosphere. (Galileo was low on fuel and NASA didn't want to take the chance, even if it was a slight one, of the spacecraft accidentally crashing on a potentially habitable icy moon.)
Reconciling the results from Galileo and Juno is key for scientists to better understand how our solar system came together, NASA said in a statement. Since Jupiter was probably the first planet to form, it could have sucked up most of the gas and dust that the sun's formation left behind. How much water Jupiter soaked up, then, should help scientists identify the most plausible theories to explain its formation.
And understanding Jupiter's birth would in turn help scientists understand how the planet's wind currents move and what its insides are made of. Scientists should be able to generalize findings at Jupiter to certain kinds of large exoplanets to learn how other solar systems formed.
Galileo's results were a puzzle even back in the 1990s. The spacecraft sent back data showing 10 times less water than scientists predicted, and more weirdly, the amount of water appeared to increase the deeper Galileo went into Jupiter's atmosphere, according to the NASA statement. Scientists had expected that by the time it stopped transmitting data, at a depth of about 75 miles (120 kilometers), the atmosphere around it should have been well-mixed with an unchanging composition.
A ground-based infrared telescope was able to measure water concentrations at Jupiter at the same time as Galileo's plunge and showed that Galileo may have accidentally hit a dry spot, meaning water is not well-mixed deep in Jupiter's atmosphere.
Juno's first eight flybys also showed a lack of atmospheric mixing. The spacecraft's radiometer obtained data even deeper than Galileo's measurements, at 93 miles (150 km) down, and found more water at the equator than Galileo did.
Scientists are now waiting to compare Juno's equatorial measurements with observations at the north of the planet; Juno's 53-day orbit is gradually moving northward to examine more of that hemisphere with each flyby. The spacecraft's next science flyby will be on April 10.
"Just when we think we have things figured out, Jupiter reminds us how much we still have to learn," Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute, said in the NASA statement. "Juno's surprise discovery that the atmosphere was not well mixed even well below the cloud tops is a puzzle that we are still trying to figure out. No one would have guessed that water might be so variable across the planet."
The new research is described in a paper published Feb. 10 in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 17.03.2020
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Jupiter's Great Red Spot may be shrinking, but its thickness is steady
Reports of the alien cyclone's impending death may be greatly exaggerated.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot isn't shrinking in every direction, a new study suggests.
Just a few centuries ago, the famous storm was about three times wider than Earth. But its swirl of angry winds is now comparable in diameter to our home planet, leading to some speculation that the Great Red Spot may be dying.
Some recent research indicates that the vortex that powers the cyclone is still going strong, however. And this notion is bolstered by the new study, which found that the Great Red Spot's thickness has probably remained constant over the past four decades or so, despite the dramatic shrinkage in the storm's areal extent observed over this span.
In the new study, Daphné Lemasquerier of Aix-Marseille Université in France and colleagues investigated the dynamics of large Jupiter vortices in several different ways. For example, they performed numerical simulations and did laboratory experiments with a salt-water-filled Plexiglas tank that measured 20 inches by 20 inches by 28 inches (50 by 50 by 70 centimeters).
This varied work allowed the scientists to determine the balance of forces that mold big Jovian storms into their pancake-like shapes. This improved understanding, in turn, enabled the researchers to make predictions about individual storms, including how they evolve over time.
"For the Great Red Spot in particular, our predicted horizontal dimensions agree well with measurements at the cloud level since the Voyager mission in 1979," the researchers wrote in the new study, which was published online today (March 16) in the journal Nature Physics. (NASA's twin Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft both flew by Jupiter in 1979.)
The scientists also predicted that the Great Red Spot is about 105 miles (170 kilometers) thick, and that this thickness hasn't changed much since the Voyagers came through.
Those thickness predictions are tougher to test, because storm height is difficult to observe in Jupiter's opaque atmosphere. But NASA's Juno probe, which has been orbiting the huge planet since July 2016, has the ability to do it, study team members said. Juno is peering deep into Jupiter's thick atmosphere with a variety of instruments, after all, seeking clues about the planet's composition, formation and evolutionary history.
"Our results now await comparison with upcoming Juno observations," Lemasquerier and her colleagues wrote in the new study.
Quelle: SC