A craft through the atmosphere of Jupiter pilot would be very hard because of massive bolts of “shallow lightning” and the equally horrible giant “mouse balls” of water and ammonia that fall like hail. To celebrate Juno’s 9th anniversary, NASA shared some cool illustrations and a visualization of what it would feel like to fly through a Jovian storm.
The mouse fins solve a mystery of Jupiter’s “missing” ammonia. Scientists believe that the planet had more ammonia than was observed by sensors:
A second paper, released yesterday in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, shows the early brewing of 2/3 water and 1/3 ammonia gas that becomes the seed for Jovian hailstones, known as mufflers. Consisting of layers of water-ammonia slush and ice covered by a thicker water-ice crust, mushrooms are generated in the same way as hail on Earth is – by growing larger as they move up and down the atmosphere.
“Eventually the mushrooms become so large, even the updrafts can not hold them, and they fall deeper into the atmosphere, encountering even warmer temperatures, where they eventually evaporate completely,” said Tristan Guillot, a Juno co-researcher. the Université Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, and lead author of the second paper. “Their action drags ammonia and water to deep levels in the planet’s atmosphere. That explains why we do not see many of these in these places with Juno’s microwave radiometer.”
Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstädt / Heidi N. Becker / Koji Kuramura
On Sunday, the SpaceX capsule with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley splashed safely into the Gulf of Mexico. (Video above.) It was the first time a private company took people from around the world and returned them to Earth and also the first splash-down of American astronauts in 45 years. At a press conference yesterday, […]
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WATCH THE SPLASHDOWN EVENT LIVE HERE, the SpaceX video embedded in this post will go live with pre-event content sometime before 7pm EDT on Saturday, August 1st.
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NASA launched its latest and largest rover, Perseverance, on Thursday to Mars, from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
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The aluminum can is a great invention. And for 60 years, it and its sly little add-on, the pull tab, have made all the transportation and drinking of all our favorite beers, soft drinks and other beverages about 1,000 percent easier. Of course, evolution continues – and even innovation is as amazing as aluminum can be […]
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It is tempting for many young professionals to assume that because they have spent most of their lives posting links to Facebook or posting selfies to Instagram they have the skills needed to be a digital marketer. Creating compelling content is certainly important, but if you are not quick about search engine optimization (SEO), how […]
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With everyone working at home now, it is natural to start thinking about careers where the office is no more the norm than the exception. Better yet, many are looking to start careers as freelancers, professionals who build their existence around the scope of their talent and not around the fate of one single employer. […]
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