Jupiter has weird lightning and hail

 According to foreign media reports, there are lightning and hail on Jupiter, but these phenomena are completely different from the familiar lightning and hail on Earth.

　　According to a recent study published in the journal Nature, Jupiter’s shallow lightning is not generated by water clouds like the Earth’s lightning, but by clouds rich in water and ammonia.

　　 Scientists have shown how Jupiter thunderstorms produce unexpected weather phenomena and form special hail-"mushballs". These mud-like spheres fall on the surface of Jupiter and transport ammonia to the deep layers of Jupiter.

　　 Planetary scientists knew about the existence of lightning on Jupiter decades ago. They believed that it was caused by similar conditions on Earth, that is, it was formed by water clouds at temperatures close to freezing. To do this, the Jupiter storm must form at an altitude of 45-65 kilometers below the top of the cloud. However, observations by NASA's Juno probe show that there is a smaller and shallower lightning phenomenon in Jupiter's atmosphere. , Indicating that Jupiter’s lightning and hail formed in a shallow atmosphere.

In this latest study, Heidi Becker, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology, and colleagues put forward a reasonable explanation-Jupiter’s upper atmosphere releases water ice crystals 25 kilometers above the water cloud layer. The ice crystals will interact with ammonia at higher altitudes. On contact, an ammonia-water mixture is formed. At this altitude, the temperature reaches minus 88 degrees Celsius, but the ammonia gas will melt ice.

　　 Becker explained at a press conference held by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that at this height, ammonia acts like an antifreeze, which can lower the melting point of water ice and promote the formation of ammonia-water liquid clouds. In this latest state, the descending ammonia-water droplets collide with the rising water-ice crystals, thereby charging the clouds. This is a huge surprise, because ammonia clouds do not exist on the earth.

This explanation seems to solve another mystery related to Jupiter-the lack of ammonia in the atmosphere creates uneven gaps. Previously, scientists believed that the lack of ammonia in the atmosphere was caused by rainfall. During the rainfall, the wet mixture of ammonia and water precipitated on the surface of Jupiter. under. However, this scientific assumption does not work because the assumed rainfall cannot match the observations of the Juno microwave radiometer, which can detect the missing ammonia when the atmosphere is exhausted.

　　 "New Journal of Geophysical Research" describes the latest interpretation theory. The previous scientists' thinking was correct, but the theory said that rainfall is not the reason for the lack of ammonia in Jupiter's atmosphere, but a different type of precipitation-hail.

　　The "mushballs" hail proposed by the researchers are composed of water and ammonia, which are similar to the hail formed in the earth's atmosphere. Initially, mushballs are small in size, and their volume continues to increase under the action of strong winds. Eventually, these slimy spheres become heavier and eventually land on the surface of Jupiter, where they evaporate at warmer temperatures.

　　 Research report co-author Scott Bolton and Juno Pai of the Southwest Research Institute pointed out that it turns out that ammonia has not disappeared, it just disguised itself and hides itself by mixing with water.

　　 So the area where ammonia disappeared was revealed. The latest theory also explains the uneven distribution of ammonia in Jupiter’s atmosphere. It's so cool to infer another scientific discovery from one scientific discovery! Some scientific efforts may seem redundant or useless, but as in these two papers, we don’t always know where the scientific evidence will lead us.