First Post: Looking at the depths of the Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a storm that has been raging on the planet for over 350 years, NASA scientists have found water above the planet’s deepest clouds.
The team led by Gordon l Bjoraker, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space flight center in Maryland, US, were looking from ground-based telescopes at wavelengths sensitive to thermal radiation leaking from the depths of Jupiter’s persistent storm, when they detected the chemical signatures of water above the planet’s deepest clouds.The pressure of the water, combined with the measurements of another oxygen-bearing gas, carbon monoxide, imply that Jupiter has two to nine times more oxygen than the sun.
This finding supports theoretical and computer-simulation models that have predicted abundant water on Jupiter, the scientists said.