[HN Gopher] Ammonia sparks unexpected, exotic lightning on Jupiter
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Ammonia sparks unexpected, exotic lightning on Jupiter
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 67 points
Date : 2021-11-02 15:54 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.cornell.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.cornell.edu)
| MadcapJake wrote:
| Wonder if there would be a way to create low orbit satellites
| that collect this electrical energy.
| timbaboon wrote:
| Lol first pass I was like, it's Spark not Sparks, and it's
| Jupyter not Jupiter, and then wondered what these other cool
| sounding things were.
| davidw wrote:
| > much more complex atmosphere
|
| Wonder if all that ammonia, lightning, water and other things
| going on might have lead to simple forms of life blowing around
| in the atmosphere, or if there's simply way too much blowing to
| allow that to develop? What's the current thinking?
| kadoban wrote:
| After water planets, it'd be where I'd look.
|
| You have to remember just how _big_ Jupiter is. There's a lot
| of room for different environments and complex interactions.
| The only problem is it's quite far away and quite hard to get a
| good look at (especially the "internal" bits).
| dmead wrote:
| the book adaptation of 2001 talks about big semi intelligent
| cloud things evolving in the atmosphere of jupiter.
| adrian_b wrote:
| For life to appear, there are 3 prerequisites.
|
| Two of them are abundant carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen and
| sulfur and a source of energy that will ensure that there is a
| continuous flux of compounds that are not very stable so they
| can take part in chemical reactions to generate complex
| molecules.
|
| These 2 conditions might exist in the atmosphere of Jupiter, if
| lightning produces enough unstable molecules.
|
| However, there is a 3rd prerequisite, the existence of
| inorganic catalysts, e.g. the sulfides of iron, cobalt and
| nickel. Other transitional metals might also work, but they are
| much less abundant, so they are unlikely to be used by life in
| the beginning.
|
| The problem is that on Jupiter rocks with metallic minerals are
| found only very deep under the exterior part made only of light
| elements, at depths where the pressure and temperature might be
| to great for any life form.
|
| So we do not know for sure, but it seems unlikely that life
| could have appeared on Jupiter or Saturn.
|
| On the other hand, on the large satellites of Saturn and
| Jupiter, there are much more chances for a place with good
| conditions to exist, than in any other part of the Solar System
| besides Earth.
| Valgrim wrote:
| Life - as we know it.
|
| We don't know how those elements interact in high
| temperature/pressure/dynamic environments. Some compounds
| which are very stable here may be less so there. Some
| inorganic form of ice may behave in a very organic way under
| certain conditions - we just don't know - until we send a
| probe there.
| gliese1337 wrote:
| Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke both thought that it might.
|
| But "current thinking" is that we just don't know. Yeah, it
| _might_. Can 't prove it either way.
| robotsteve2 wrote:
| Nobody knows, full stop. We can guess and conjecture about what
| should and should not be possible with respect to the origins
| of life, but really, we know very little. So it's not very
| meaningful.
|
| We haven't observed abiogenesis and experiment/observation is
| the ultimate guide.
| Bancakes wrote:
| I bet you're fun not only at parties but lectures as well.
| drdrey wrote:
| Does anybody know where I can read more about that picture
| specifically? It looks suspiciously good, what kind of processing
| did it go through?
| fourthark wrote:
| It's an artist's rendition.
| padobson wrote:
| I've been confused about the "gas giants" since I first learned
| about them in gradeschool, but never really took it upon myself
| to dig into it deeply.
|
| Whenever I think about planets, I think about a big rock you can
| land on, but if Jupiter and Saturn are made entirely of gas,
| landing on them is a non-sequitur, correct?
|
| Do most planets start out as gas giants? Does the effect of
| gravity over epochs compress them into rocky planets? How should
| we think about them in terms of our solar system? In how we
| explore? In how we colonize?
| ChildOfEru wrote:
| Goes into a bit about theories on the formation and a bit on
| the core of Jupiter. https://www.universetoday.com/14470/does-
| jupiter-have-a-soli...
| an9n wrote:
| > landing on them is a non-sequitur, correct?
|
| With a big enough airship I guess you could float :D
| svachalek wrote:
| This is a very cool description of what the interior of Jupiter
| may be like:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/12eggw/seeing_a...
| PaulHoule wrote:
| This is the most important concept in planetary astronomy I
| think
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_line_%28astrophysics%29
|
| Gas giants are formed out there. Outside the frost line many
| bodies contain a lot of water (as much as 50%!)
| chongli wrote:
| When the solar system formed it began as a cloud of gas and
| dust. As the sun condensed out of the cloud the remaining gas
| and dust was drawn into orbit around it, forming a disk. Over
| time, larger rocks and pebbles in the disk accumulated the
| material around them during their orbit of the forming sun,
| like rolling snowballs getting larger and larger.
|
| At some point during the formation of the sun, enough pressure
| builds up inside to allow ignition of its fusion fuel (mostly
| hydrogen). As the sun heats up it begins emitting radiation and
| the ejection of particles (solar wind). It's this combination
| of stuff (light and particles) that pushes lighter gases out of
| the near orbital region (where the rocky planets formed). Those
| gases make their way out beyond the asteroid belt and get
| picked up by the forming gas giants. At the same time, the
| heavier dust and rocks don't get pushed very far by the sun and
| instead get accumulated in the rocky inner planets.
|
| This pattern is more or less consistent around all stars we see
| out there. Of course, it varies in strength based on the amount
| of radiation and particles emitted by the star and that is a
| complex topic all by itself. But I hope the basic picture I've
| given here is informative.
| sokoloff wrote:
| That was informative; thanks!
|
| What causes the initial stage to form a disc (rather than a
| progressively more dense cloud/sphere/blob)? Just the
| rotation? (In which case, where's the rotation come from?)
| chongli wrote:
| At the beginning there is no rotation. The cloud may start
| with roughly uniform density along with some momentum. Over
| time, this density becomes higher in the middle and lower
| around the outside. Everything in the cloud begins
| accelerating toward the place of higher density which forms
| into the sun while at the same time continuing in the
| direction according to its initial momentum. This is what
| causes rotation that leads to the formation of a disk. Any
| time you have momentum in a direction other than the local
| centre of mass (star, planet, etc), your path of travel
| curves into a circle (actually an ellipse, but that's
| another topic: see Kepler's laws).
| kadonoishi wrote:
| This is a nice visual:
|
| https://youtu.be/tmNXKqeUtJM?t=100
| isatty wrote:
| From my naive understanding the gas clouds have angular
| momentum which is conserved when the disk is formed.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Planets "start out" as a cloud of dust, rocks, and gas orbiting
| a young star which eventually coalesce into planets, lots of
| things go on which determine what kind of planet results.
|
| Gas giants are indeed mostly gas and then gases liquefied and
| solidified by the very high pressures inside as you go down and
| eventually a bit of a rocky core.
|
| If you were indestructible you would "land" on an ocean of
| liquid hydrogen, but because of the high pressures there won't
| necessarily be a well defined surface but a transition between
| gas-like qualities and liquid-like qualities. Go down and
| eventually you get to a solidified hydrogen, a few other
| things, and somewhat of a rocky core.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Jupiter and Saturn are not made entirely out of gas. They are
| made mostly out of atoms that form gases on earth.
|
| For example, Jupiter is thought to have a solid core composed
| of solids twice as dense as earth's core. On top of this is a
| ocean of liquid metallic hydrogen. On top of that is the gas
| phase atmosphere.
|
| https://sciencing.com/jupiters-core-vs-earths-core-21848.htm...
| iamAtom wrote:
| Well its a diwali in Jupiter I guess
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