Imagine the very earliest humans looking up
at the night sky. Among the brightest objects they would have
seen were the planets. And among those would have been Jupiter. What Jupiter actually was in those days was
a mystery, and it took until Galileo first trained a telescope on it to learn more. But as our understanding of Jupiter as a planet
has progressed from there, new mysteries have arisen regarding this world. So here are ten unusual aspects of planet
Jupiter. 10. You Can Hear Jupiter on Shortwave Radio Amateur astronomy is usually something we
think of in terms of optical telescopes, binoculars and naked eye star gazing. But there is another way to do it. Radio astronomy and with the right equipment,
you can actually listen to Jupiter. Jupiter produces radio waves very strongly
at roughly 5 to 40 megahertz. This means that a shortwave radio with the
right antenna can pick up Jupiter’s emissions. How it creates these radio emissions has to
do with the actions of subatomic particles spiraling around in Jupiter’s intense magnetic
field. The sounds tend to sound like distant ocean
waves crashing on a shore along with crackling and pops similar to listening to a bag of
popcorn cook in a microwave. To hear them, check out NASA’s Radio Jove
project, link below, for more information. 9. The Great Red Spot One of Jupiter’s most prominent features
is the great red spot. Astronomers have been observing it continuously
since about 1830, but unconfirmed observations of what might have been the red spot go back
to the 17th century. It’s anyone’s guess how old the spot actually
is, but even at two centuries it’s hard to imagine how a single storm could rage for
so long, but it has. But it’s also changed across time, and may
even be dying. In the 21st century, the spot has been observed
to be shrinking, and even flaking with small parts of it spiraling off the edges and dissipating. This could mean that storm is winding down,
but equally possible is that it might flare back up and continue to rage on for centuries. Part of the problem of figuring this out is
that we actually know very little about the dynamics of the red spot, or how deeply it
extends into Jupiter’s atmosphere. There is some indication that material from
deep below upwelling into Jupiter’s atmosphere is likely playing a large role. But much of it is a mystery, including it’s
coloration, which ranges from red to a kind of salmon color. Chemically what’s happening to cause the
coloration, and why it changes, is also largely unknown. 8. Metallic Hydrogen At the temperatures and pressures present
within Jupiter’s interior, hydrogen can do something very strange when compared to
its normal gaseous self. While it normally does not behave like metal
under normal conditions, under the conditions present at Jupiter it can take on a form known
as metallic hydrogen, and behave something like a metal and even become electrically
conductive. The metallic hydrogen at Jupiter is thought
to extend very deep into the planet’s interior and be in a fluid state. Above it would be a layer hydrogen in its
normal liquid state, meaning that much of jupiter is in a fluid state under intense
pressure and heat. One odd property of metallic hydrogen is that
it’s thought that it may be metastable, meaning that you could take a sample of it
out of Jupiter into low pressure, and it would remain metallic hydrogen. This may have implications on future technology. Metallic hydrogen is thought to be a superconductor,
but at room temperature rather than very low temperatures as is typical for superconductors. And if it is in fact metastable, it may turn
out to be useful for that purpose. Experiments to create metallic hydrogen here
on earth have reported some unconfirmed successes. 7. Jupiter’s Core May Have Disappeared Early in the history of the solar system,
it’s likely that Jupiter started out as a solid core of rock. In order to attract and collect up so much
material from the solar nebula to form the atmosphere, it’s likely that this object
would have been quite large, on the order of 12-40 times more massive than earth. It’s always been assumed that this rocky
core still exists at the center of Jupiter. But this may not actually be the case. Recent measurements indicate that Jupiter
may have no distinct core at all, or if it does, there isn’t a hard boundary between
it and the metallic hydrogen. The original material from the core is still
there, but rather diffusely mixed in with the metallic hydrogen. This is actually rather strange since this
does not appear to be the case with Saturn, our other gas giant. In contrast, it appears to have something
more resembling a solid core than Jupiter has, despite being less massive. Why there’s a difference is still a mystery. 6. Wind and Lightning and the little red spot Jupiter’s atmosphere is violent and ridden
with lightning; very powerful lightning that can be as much as ten times stronger than
it is here on earth. And this lighting strikes constantly, but
one oddity about Jupiter’s lightning is that it only strikes near the poles of the
planet, with none at the equator. This is thought to be an effect of solar heating
which stabilizes Jupiter’s upper atmosphere enough to prevent the convection that would
normally produce lightning. The poles do not see this heating, and because
of that, they see lightning. In addition to lightning, there are Jupiter’s
winds. It’s winds speeds can exceed 384 miles per
hour, nearly double that of the highest wind speeds recorded in hurricanes here on earth. These speeds on Jupiter were recorded in an
odd feature known as the little red spot. This feature began forming in 1998 with the
merging of three separate white storms. There were subsequently several other mergers
with other storms, but in 2005 for reasons unknown the entire storm turned red. What this means, and whether we are seeing
the formation of a new great red spot remains to be seen. 5. Jupiter May Have Been Key to the Genesis of
Life on Earth … or not One of the contributing factors to life’s
genesis on earth is that after the late heavy bombardment stopped, earth has experienced
a general calm as far as impact events go allowing life on earth to flourish. Well, unless you’re a dinosaur. That said, while they do periodically happen,
of course, it could conceivably be far worse. Conventional thinking has always been that
this is due to Jupiter essentially vacuuming up material, thereby protecting the inner
solar system. But more recent evidence actually suggests
the opposite, that Jupiter and Saturn in tandem tend to toss material at us rather than deflect
it. Regardless of whichever is the case, we actually
have seen Jupiter eat a comet. In 1993 comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was determined
to have been captured and in orbit of Jupiter. It was subsequently torn apart by the giant
planet and in 1994 multiple large chunks of the comet smacked into Jupiter in a line leaving
a series of dark spots on the planet’s atmosphere that were even visible in small telescopes
for a time. 4. Jupiter’s Massive Magnetosphere Not only is Jupiter the largest planet in
the solar system, excepting the sun’s, it has by far the strongest magnetosphere of
any object in the solar system. This magnetosphere is thought to be generated
by the metallic hydrogen, and is so large that it stretches out to the orbit of Saturn
making it one of the largest natural structures present in the solar system. This leads to an interesting effect on Jupiter. Gigantic auroras glow at the north and south
poles, and they are far more powerful than what we see on earth with our northern and
southern lights. Up until recently Jupiter’s auroras were
thought to simply be larger versions of earth’s, but this has turned out to not be the case. Instead it’s a secondary type of aurora
that only causes a very weak effect here, where electrons are accelerated into the atmosphere
via rippling in the magnetic field. Given that Jupiter’s magnetic field is so
much more powerful, it can accelerate the electrons to much greater effect into the
planet’s atmosphere. And while Jupiter’s auroras never stop and
are always on display, unfortunately if you were in orbit of that planet you wouldn’t
see them. They do not radiate in the visible light spectrum. 3. Where is Jupiter’s Water? Jupiter is not just a huge ball of hydrogen
and helium. Within its atmospheric makeup are also many
other elements including sulfur, nitrogen and carbon. In fact, it seems enriched with them when
compared to an object like the sun. How this happened is thought to be due to
water freezing and capturing the materials, and as Jupiter formed it could have ingested
large amounts of these enriched ice chunks. So, there should be plenty of water in the
atmosphere of Jupiter. But there doesn’t seem to be, at least in
the concentrations expected in order to yield all the other materials present. How the concentrations of other elements present
in Jupiter’s atmosphere came to be remains a mystery. 2. Jupiter’s Mysterious Flashes Over the past few decades amateur and professional
astronomers have noticed bright, short lived flashes of light coming from Jupiter. While these are thought to be impacts of large
objects to be seen at such a distance, they did not leave the characteristic darkened
debris spots that comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 did. As if that weren’t enough, Jupiter’s belts
also have a tendency to disappear occasionally, only to reappear some time later. Some insights have recently been gained into
this phenomenon, it appears that white frozen ammonia clouds can occasionally obscure the
belts, only to dissipate allowing them to reappear. Number One. The Ice Shell Moons While Jupiter itself is unlikely to be habitable
to much of anything, it’s moons are a different story. All four of the Galilean moons of Jupiter
have been advanced as possibly having had the opportunity for life to arise, including
Io early in its history. As to Ganymede, Callisto and, of course, Europa,
liquid water oceans beneath the surface of their ice shells seem strong possibilities
for all these worlds. As such, in principle, they are all three
candidates for current life. While any life found on these bodies is probably
going to be microbial, or at least very simple, life does tend to surprise so who knows what
might lie under those shells of ice. But in particular, one candidate stands out. Europa. That moon may be doing more than simply presenting
the conditions that life might be there, but rather may be hinting directly that it exists. Some have speculated that the cracks in Europa’s
ice show reddish-brown coloration that may be caused by frozen microorganisms from the
ocean below. This led to Brad Dalton of NASA Ames to compare
the infrared signature of the colorations with microrganisms that live in hot springs
here on earth. They were a very close match. Further work with other bacteria also showed
certain similarities. While it’s also possible that the colorations
are simply caused by salts or minerals, it does give one more reason to check out Europa
and see if anything is alive in its oceans. Thanks for listening! I am futurist and science fiction author John
Michael Godier publicly thanking Jupiter again for it’s awesomeness … I ‘ve done this
before. When making this video and looking through
all the new shots of Jupiter coming from Juno, well one can’t help but to be astonished
at this giant amazing, turbulent world. Thanks again champ and be sure to check out
my books at your favorite online book retailer and subscribe to my channels for regular,
in-depth explorations into the interesting, weird and unknown aspects of this amazing
universe in which we live.
