[In Depth] Telescope and NASA mission get under Jupiter's skin
This week, a ground-based radio telescope has revealed that, beneath a veil of haze and clouds on Jupiter, there exists a giant wave of ammonia that circles the planet north of its equator. And next month, the NASA Juno spacecraft will arrive and peer even deeper, into a suspected water layer, for clues to where and how the planet formed. The discovery of the ammonia wave helps resolve a mystery that has persisted since the Galileo probe fell into a hot spot in 1995, and it could help modelers understand the deeper dynamics of the atmosphere. Jupiter's radiation belts prevent ground-based telescopes from seeing deeper, and so scientists are relying on Juno's daring, swooping polar orbit to provide one of the first views into the deep underworld of Jupiter's atmosphere. Author: Eric Hand