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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."
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.
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.
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.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
No. There is nothing to see here.
Sincerely,
The Monolith