The News of Us
  • Home
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Science and Technology
  • Health
  • Subscribe Us
No Result
View All Result
The News of Us
  • Home
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Science and Technology
  • Health
  • Subscribe Us
No Result
View All Result
The News of Us
No Result
View All Result

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Updates Quarter-Century Jupiter Mystery

admin by admin
December 13, 2020
in Science and Technology

The spacecraft has been collecting data on the gas giant’s interior since July 2016. Some of its latest findings touch on “hot spots” in the planet’s atmosphere.

Twenty-five years ago, NASA sent history’s first probe into the atmosphere of the solar system’s largest planet. But the information returned by the Galileo probe during its descent into Jupiter caused head-scratching: The atmosphere it was plunging into was much denser and hotter than scientists expected.

New data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft suggests that these “hot spots” are much wider and deeper than anticipated. The findings on Jupiter’s hot spots, along with an update on Jupiter’s polar cyclones, were revealed on Dec. 11, during a virtual media briefing at the American Geophysical Union’s fall conference.

“Giant planets have deep atmospheres without a solid or liquid base like Earth,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “To better understand what is happening deep into one of these worlds, you need to look below the cloud layer. Juno, which recently completed its 29th close-up science pass of Jupiter, does just that. The spacecraft’s observations are shedding light on old mysteries and posing new questions – not only about Jupiter, but about all gas giant worlds.”

This time-lapse video clip shows the movement of the cyclones at Jupiter’s south pole from February 2017 through November 2020. The data was collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM

The latest longstanding mystery Juno has tackled stems from 57 minutes, 36 seconds of data Galileo beamed back on Dec. 7, 1995. When the probe radioed back that its surroundings were dry and windy, surprised scientists attributed the finding to the fact that the 75-pound (34-kilogram) probe had descended into the atmosphere within one of Jupiter’s relatively rare hot spots – localized atmospheric “deserts” that traverse the gas giant’s northern equatorial region.

But results from Juno’s microwave instrument indicate that the entire northern equatorial belt – a broad, brown, cyclonic band that wraps around the planet just above of the gas giant’s equator – is generally a very dry region.

The implication is that the hot spots may not be isolated “deserts,” but rather, windows into a vast region in Jupiter’s atmosphere that may be hotter and drier than other areas. Juno’s high-resolution data show that these Jovian hot spots are associated with breaks in the planet’s cloud deck, providing a glimpse into Jupiter’s deep atmosphere. They also show the hot spots, flanked by clouds and active storms, are fueling high-altitude electrical discharges recently discovered by Juno and known as “shallow lightning.” These discharges, which occur in the cold upper reaches of Jupiter’s atmosphere when ammonia mixes with water, are a piece of this puzzle.

“High up in the atmosphere, where shallow lightning is seen, water and ammonia are combined and become invisible to Juno’s microwave instrument. This is where a special kind of hailstone that we call ‘mushballs’ are forming,” said Tristan Guillot, a Juno co-investigator at the Université Côte d’Azur in Nice, France. “These mushballs get heavy and fall deep into the atmosphere, creating a large region that is depleted of both ammonia and water. Once the mushballs melt and evaporate, the ammonia and water change back to a gaseous state and are visible to Juno again.”

This animation takes the viewer high into a large storm high in Jupiter’s atmosphere, where a mushy water-ammonia particle (represented in green) descends through the atmosphere, collecting water ice in the process. The process creates a “mushball” – a special hailstone with a center made partially of liquid water-ammonia mush and a solid water-ice crust exterior. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/CNRS

“That sixth cyclone, the baby of the group, appeared to be changing the geometric configuration at the pole – from a pentagon to a hexagon,” said Bolton. “But, alas, the attempt failed; the baby cyclone got kicked out, moved away, and eventually disappeared.”

At present, the team doesn’t have an agreed-upon theory regarding how these giant polar vortices form – or why some appear stable while others are born, grow, and then die relatively quickly. Work continues on atmospheric models, but at present no one model appears to explain everything. How new storms appear, evolve, and are either accepted or rejected is key to understanding the circumpolar cyclones, which might help explain how the atmospheres of such giant planets work in general.

More About the Mission

JPL, a division of Caltech 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 the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.

Source: NASA

[Read More…]

Previous Post

Virgin Galactic makes first flight from New Mexico site

Next Post

Portable Saliva-Based Smartphone Platform Could Rapidly Expand COVID-19 Testing

Related Posts

Science and Technology

Astronomers find signature of magnetar outbursts in nearby galaxies

Science and Technology

New way to recycle soft plastics – you can enhance concrete with it

Science and Technology

New method helps pocket-sized DNA sequencer achieve near-perfect accuracy

Science and Technology

Galaxy mergers could limit star formation

Science and Technology

Scientists develop a cheaper method that might help create fuels from plants

Business

U.S. Army Research Leads to More Effective Training Model for Robots

Next Post

Portable Saliva-Based Smartphone Platform Could Rapidly Expand COVID-19 Testing

Follow us for latest Business News | Political News | Science & Technology News | Health News.

Subscribe Us

By clicking subscribe, I authorize: (1) The News Of Us to use and share my information in accordance with its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and (2) The News Of Us or third-party companies, including The News Of Us’s business partners, to contact me by email with offers for goods and services at the email address provided. Please note that the information you have provided to us may be supplemented with additional information obtained from other sources.

© 2021 The News of Us, - All Rights Reserved.

  • Subscribe Us
  • Contact Us
  • Unsubscribe
  • Privacy Policy
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Science and Technology
  • Health
  • Subscribe Us

© 2021 The News of Us, - All Rights Reserved.