10 Incredible Photos of Jupiter's Storms Show What's Going On Underneath It's Surface

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  via New Republic

  Humans have been taking photos of the planets in our solar system for over 50 years. The first photograph taken of our solar system was in 1946. After strapping a 35 millimeter camera to a V-2 missile and launching it into space, the mangled remains of the missile amazingly had preserved the photos inside the camera after it plunged back to Earth. The first photos people ever saw of another planet was a blurry black and white image of Mars' surface. Since seeing this, astronomers have become obsessed with photographing more of the planets in our solar system in order to understand them more (and we all know that they secretly want to get footage of an alien). 

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  via Science Alert

  Technology has changed greatly in the past 50 years, and photos of our neighboring planets have come a long way from that blurry black and white photo of Mars. But a few weeks ago, astronomers hit the jackpot when an amateur astronomer spotted a eruption of ammonia that came from underneath Jupiter's clouds, disrupting the cover of clouds that have, till now, prevented astronomers from seeing what lies underneath. 

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  via CNN

  Jupiter has a wild atmosphere, characterized by its constant, raging storms and swirling bands of clouds across its surface. Jupiter's atmosphere is made up of helium and hydrogen, with smaller amounts of ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide and water. To be able to photograph more than it's surface clouds, scientists need more than a 35 mm camera.  

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  via Science Alert

  This is where ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) comes in. ALMA can study Jupiter's atmosphere with radio waves, which allows the camera to see beneath the cloud tops that are visible through a normal telescope. ALMA was able to see 25 or 30 miles into Jupiter's atmosphere. 

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  via CNN

  Jupiter is actually made up entirely of atmosphere: it has no 'surface' to touch down on like Earth does. It is a planet made of gas. Traveling from the outside to the center of the planet, temperature and pressure goes up. These increases can cause the gases to separate into different layers, and the hydrogen can change into liquid and metal. 

  
  

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  via CNN

  The 'clouds' that we can see on Jupiter's surface actually lie around 31 miles above the planet's 'surface', the gases of which create distinctive white and red bands that can be seen from Earth. It is this layer that astronomers and scientists have been trying to penetrate for years. 

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  via CNN

  What alerted the amateur astronomer was an energetic eruption underneath Jupiter's surface clouds, which disrupted the red and white bands and allowed scientists to make a 3D map of the distribution of ammonia gas below the clouds with ALMA. This was the first time that scientists have been able to see underneath Jupiter's clouds. 

  
  

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  via CNN

  The energetic eruptions on Jupiter are very similar to Earth's thunderstorms. They even have lightning, which show up as tiny white plumes on Jupiter's top cloud layer. But the radio wave images from ALMA showed much more than this, and suggested further evidence for a current hypothesis that the white plumes are triggered by moist convection currents at the foot of the water clouds deep inside Jupiter's atmosphere. These eruptions are powerful enough to push ammonia gas above the surface clouds (the coldest part of Jupiter), where they spread out like cumulonimbus clouds and cause visible white plumes as they freeze.

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  via CNN

  These disruptions to Jupiter's surface clouds can last for months and even years. "If these plumes are vigorous and continue to have convective events, they may disturb one of these entire bands over time, though it may take a few months," Imke de Pater said, a professor or astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. "With these observations, we see one plume in progress and the aftereffects of the others."

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  via CNN

  With the daily advancements in technology, it won't be long before we understand even more about Jupiter and the other planets in our solar system. Like the auroras seen here on one of Jupiter's poles, it's truly amazing that something so beautiful can be part of our universe. 

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