A pair of planetary scientists at the University of California, working with a colleague from the California Institute of Technology, has discovered that a massive amount of ammonia is churned up and down in Jupiter’s atmosphere during major storms. In their study published in Science Advances, Chris Moeckel, Imke de Pater, and Huazhi Ge analyzed data from multiple sources focused on a major storm that occurred on Jupiter starting in 2016.
Over the past several decades, as spaceborne observation technology has improved, astronomers have been studying the storms that occur on other planets. These studies have shown that storms tend to play a major role in the formation of atmospheric conditions. In this new effort, the researchers focused on a major storm that began on Jupiter in 2016 and continued through 2017.
To learn more about the impact of the storm on Jupiter’s atmosphere, the researchers obtained data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, the Hubble Space Telescope and from the Juno space probe, which just happened to be making a flyby of the planet during the time when the storm was occurring.
By comparing data between sources, the researchers were able to follow the flow of ammonia as it was pushed during downdrafts from the outer reaches of the planet’s atmosphere to levels deep below the clouds. This movement, the researchers found, resulted in trapping ammonia gas deeply in lower parts of the atmosphere even after the storm had passed—leaving what the team describes as a “fingerprint” in the atmosphere.
The research team created a simulation to show the movement of the atmospheric storm components, including ammonia. The simulations showed the ammonia gas being pushed far below the clouds and pulled during updrafts into the higher parts of the planet’s atmosphere, leading to it “drying out,” as the team described.
That was followed by the formation of dark patches, which the team believes comprised a mix of ammonia and water forming into slush balls, which fell back, like hail on Earth, to lower parts of the atmosphere during an ensuing downdraft, until they eventually evaporated.
The net result, the researchers found, was patches of ammonia hanging low in the atmosphere even after the storm had died.
More information:
Chris Moeckel et al, Tempests in the troposphere: Mapping the impact of giant storms on Jupiter’s deep atmosphere, Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ado9779
© 2025 Science X Network
Citation:
Massive Jupiter storm churns ammonia deep into planet’s atmosphere (2025, April 4)
retrieved 5 April 2025
from
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
