Does Jupiter Have More Water Than NASA's Galileo Detected?

astroengine writes "Launched in August of last year, NASA's Juno probe is on a Kamikaze mission to go prospecting for water on Jupiter. Although its predecessor, NASA's Galileo spacecraft, took a death-dive into the gas giant it didn't detect any signs of water in its atmosphere. Why? Fran Bagenela, of the University of Colorado, told a group of scientists at the recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Anchorage, Alaska, that the Galileo probe fell at the boundary between one of the brown atmospheric zones and white belts that form a striped pattern across the planet's face. This gap region could have been unusually dry, she added. Now it's up to Juno to investigate when it enters orbit around Jupiter in 2016."

Comments

It's a big planet

[fiannaFailMan]

Could take a while (and more than two probes) to explore it.

Re:It's a big planet

[binarylarry]

Down with NERVA!

Nobody expects the New England Region Volleyball Association!

Re:It's a big planet

[Aglassis]

Actually it should have lots of water because it is a gas giant. Jupiter is past the Frost Line. This means that water can form ice crystals past this point. Inside the Frost Line, the solar wind and radiation pressure force gaseous water out. This is one of the reasons that the inner planets have so little water. Outside, ice crystals can accumulate. This is probably what allowed the gas giants to rapidly accumulate mass before the Sun blew its nebula out of the Solar System. In fact, the planets Uranus and Neptune are commonly referred to as "ice giants" due to the significant amount of water they contain.

To summarize, Jupiter should have a lot of water.

Not an entry probe

[mbone]

Just because I know that some will be confused by the summary, Juno is purely an orbiter. It doesn't have an entry probe. So, it can look for water, but it is has to do it from orbit.

Re:Not an entry probe

[Thanshin]

correct, it will use a very, very long drinking straw.

In case you confuse someone, I'd like to clarify the probe doesn't actually use a long straw but far more technological means. In this case, two robotic arms were installed in the probe so it could correctly hold a dowsing stick.

Jupiter has water

[neonv]

We saw the comet Shoemaker-Levy-9 hit Jupiter in 1994. Being such a gravity giant, it's likely to have been hit by many comets. Since comets are full of water, there's no question about water present on Jupiter. The problem is the large size, gravitational pull, pressure, extreme weather, regular asteroid impacts, and, I can't stress this enough, it's a big ball of gas. I'm as interested in Jupiter as any nerd, but it's not as likely a source of life as other places in the solar system.

Re:Jupiter has water

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm as interested in Jupiter as any nerd, but it's not as likely a source of life as other places in the solar system.

Or our concept of life is too limited. Arther C. Clarke in "2010" had an interesting concept of what life would be like on Jupiter.

If your concept of life in other parts of the Universe is bacteria and fellow bald monkeys, then you will never find it. Or to put in another way, having a concept of alien life based upon Hollywood Sci-Fi - like that crap Star Trek - will have you horribly disappointed for all eternity.

Re:Jupiter has water

[icebike]

it's a big ball of gas. I'm as interested in Jupiter as any nerd, but it's not as likely a source of life as other places in the solar system.

Still its Our Ball of Gas, (until some one/thing capable of stating otherwise shows up), and it would be pretty cool to go looking.

Is the atmosphere such that some sort of balloon with a payload could not float around in it for a considerable time scavenging energy from the winds themselves?
I've read where the wind speeds are horrendously fast, but that might not affect something designed specifically to float in the atmosphere.

Re:Jupiter has water

[Bill Currie]

Let's see, life as we know it needs...
carbon... check. methane.
nitrogen... check. amonia.
hydrogen... check. comes bundled with the carbon and nitrogen.
water... hmm, well, that's what juno is looking for
energy... check. It's Jupter we're talking about :) Second most energetic object in the solar system.
various metalic elements... hmm, this could be tricky

At 4 out of 6, and I'd be surprised if the other two weren't there somewhere, I'd say Jupiter has a very good chance of harboring life. The level of complexity of the life is another matter, but Jupiters might be more likely to be a source of life than puny little Earth.

Re:Jupiter has water

[khallow]

Is the atmosphere such that some sort of balloon with a payload could not float around in it for a considerable time scavenging energy from the winds themselves?

It might be possible with a tether system dipping down into a different layer of atmosphere, but really, you'd hope that there's not enough wind energy around your vehicle to generate power. That's because you wouldn't need much more than that to tear the vehicle apart.

From my experience with high altitude weather balloons, there really isn't much local wind energy to exploit near a balloon. Sometimes you can get banged around by crossing boundaries or "shear layers" where wind direction and speed abruptly changes. But usually, it's real quiet in such a balloon.

Re:Jupiter has water

[mbone]

I think that the 50 years of space exploration shows that we are most interested in life that is somewhat like us, in settings we can understand. Bacteria on Mars ? Fish on Europa ? Yes, launch the spacecraft! Floating life at 40 km altitude on Venus or in the clouds of Jupiter or Saturn ? Not so much. And, yet, the atmospheres of both Venus and Jupiter show signs of being out of chemical equilibria, the essential signature of a biological system.

People need to understand how slowly we are exploring the solar system. Yes, substantial progress is being made, but it is taking a long time to settle even the most basic questions. Ones that are rated secondary (such as life on Jupiter) could take a century or more to address.

Re:Jupiter has water

[flyingfsck]

The sun and all the planets are made of the same stuff. http://thesurfaceofthesun.com/ The gas giants all have rocky cores.

Re:Jupiter has water

[Tarlus]

Reminds me of a book I liked to read as a child, the National Geographic Picture Atlas of our Universe. It had some speculative artwork and descriptions of what life on all of the planets in the solar system would be like. (Including Pluto; I miss those days.)

Their depiction of life on Jupiter included gigantic blimp-like creatures and flying, dart-like predators that would cause them to burst.

Re:Truly

[rubycodez]

APSWire - Thunder Bay, Ontario

Canadian scientists are building a probe to detect ethyl alcohol on Jupiter for launch in 2013. The equpment is being assembled in special booze-free "sobriety rooms", with secure booze-locks on the entrances. "Life as we drunken canucks know it would be imposible without this vital hydroxyl of a saturated ethane", said project lead Liam McKenzie

No... nothing to see here.

[theendlessnow]

No. There is nothing to see here.

Sincerely,
The Monolith