The spacecraft may have found where the colorless gas has been hiding on the solar system's biggest planetary inhabitant.
New results from NASA's Juno mission at Jupiter suggest our solar system's largest planet is home to what's called "shallow lightning." An unexpected form of electrical discharge, shallow lightning originates from clouds containing an ammonia-water solution, whereas lightning on Earth originates from water clouds.
Other new findings suggest the violent thunderstorms for which the gas giant is known may form slushy ammonia-rich hailstones Juno's science team calls "mushballs"; they theorize that mushballs essentially kidnap ammonia and water in the upper atmosphere and carry them into the depths of Jupiter's atmosphere.
The shallow-lightning findings will be published in print Thursday, Aug. 6, in the journal Nature. The mushballs research is currently available online in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
www.missionjuno.swri.edu