Analysing Jupiter’s Atmosphere.
June 23rd 2011 03:30
Category: Jupiter
Since the early day when Galileo first turned the telescope towards the heavens way back in the middle ages. When the science of astronomy was thought to be the work of alchemy.
Galileo and others changed our view regarding our understanding of the Moon and planets. The discovery of the telescope increased our knowledge of the planets significantly. Until then no one had had the capability to see distant objects in detail.
Planet Jupiter is perhaps my favorite planet, primarily because it was the first planet I saw through a telescope.
Jupiter is one of the heavyweights of the solar system. Over the centuries we have learned a great deal about Jupiter’s often violent weather patterns. We knew about Jupiter’s chemical makeup. Most of the information we had on Jupiter was obtained using Earth based observations.
That all changed in 1993 when the spacecraft Galileo dropped a smaller probe towards Jupiter’s atmosphere. The probe’s deployment was perhaps the first attempt to find out what a gas giant atmosphere contained.
We already knew about the atmospheres of Venus and Mars, but until then very little information was known about the atmospheres of gas giants.
The tiny probe reached the upper reaches of Jupiter’s atmosphere the probe’s started to decelerate rapidly.
The probe underwent tremendous forces it decelerated for 50 Km per second to subsonic speed in a matter of minutes. The probe underwent a force of over 200g.The probe continued to descend surviving the searing heat of re entry. The probe only had one hour before the rising temperature and high pressure would be crushed.
The telemetry information was relayed to the Galileo spacecraft still in orbit around Jupiter. The information was then sent to Earth. The probe sent back information on the make up of Jupiter’s clouds the relative amounts of helium and hydrogen. It measured the wind speed in parts clocking over 1,2000 Miles per hour.
The probe detected the huge amounts of electrical activity.
The electrical storms produced huge amounts of static that can be detected on Earth.
The probe revealed to us another side of Jupiter. We only see the upper surface of the planet we now know that underneath Jupiter’s atmosphere is a very different world.
After 14 years in space the Galileo spacecraft was deliberately crashed on Jupiter.
In part it was sent to Jupiter as not to contaminate the surfaces of Galilean moons Ganymede or Europa.
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Camera Sense
Jupiter has a molten rock core which more massive than the entire Earth. It is 20,000 °C, about three times hotter than the Earth's core.
Jupiter may have become a star if the planet's mass was larger then it is now..