NARRATOR: 400 million
miles from Earth exists a mini-solar system
of over 60 moons rotating around a powerful planet of gas. Its flowing colors and
spots hold strange beauty, but contain violent
storms and jet streams. Could this big bright
ball of weather have been the Star of Bethlehem? Could one of its moons harbor
life beneath its icy crust? We expect that
branches of life will exist on Europa,
just simply because water is the key feature. I want to go ice
fishing on Europa. Cut a hole, put a
submersible, look around, see if anything swims
up to the camera lens and licks the camera. That's what I want to do. NARRATOR: And does our own
planet owe its survival to this massive cosmic magnet? Jupiter, the giant planet. [music playing] Jupiter is half a billion
miles from the Sun-- a giant sphere of intrigue. This churning ball of gas
may look like an artist's rendering, but it's
the real thing. Jupiter has the most exotic
weather pattern we've ever seen in the solar system. NARRATOR: Jupiter is
84% hydrogen and almost 14% helium-- the two lightest
and most abundant elements in the universe
rolled into a mammoth mass. ROBERT ROY BRITT: This thing is
11 times the diameter of Earth. And you could take 1,000
Earths and stuff them inside Jupiter comfortably. KEVIN BAINES: Jupiter really is
the lord of the solar system. About 70% of the mass in all
the planets is in Jupiter. If you're talking
about planets, Jupiter is the big boy on the block. And it really does
rule the roost. [music playing] NARRATOR: Jupiter is the largest
planet in the solar system, visible to the naked eye. A day is only 9.9 hours long,
and it takes 11.86 years to orbit the Sun. A 150-pound person would
weigh 350 pounds on Jupiter. There are thunder clouds made
of ammonia, sulfur, and water. Exploring Jupiter would be
NASA's most daring mission to date. It's a hostile place,
with temperature extremes from frigid to fiery. Its electromagnetic
radiation is intense. It could kill a traveler to
the planet in an instant. We would need heavy
lead protection, and that's very difficult
to lift off the ground. So we have some difficult
engineering challenges to actually bring human
beings to the planet Jupiter. A landing on Jupiter
is not going to happen. Jupiter itself is a
very gassy planet. It's made of gas. So you would not have a
solid surface on which to land and walk around. You would just keep
descending through the clouds, and then be eventually crushed
by the pressure of Jupiter's atmosphere. That make a human trip to
Jupiter quite a challenge. NARRATOR: But what
if we could go there? [music playing] Dr. Andrew Ingersoll is an
authority on the planet. He takes us for a ride. You need a special
kind of balloon because Jupiter's atmosphere
is hydrogen. Hydrogen is the lightest gas. A helium balloon would sink. So the only thing that'll float
in a cold hydrogen atmosphere is hot hydrogen. And so
you'd need a hot air hydrogen balloon. NARRATOR: For the
past 10 years, NASA has been developing
ultra-long duration balloons for robotic exploration. And as we all know, heating
hydrogen is a tricky thing. [explosion] But just how this behemoth
was born is a puzzle. The formation of Jupiter is
the greatest mystery associated with the planet. NARRATOR: Some believe Jupiter
may have been a failed star. Like the Sun, it had
the right ingredients-- hydrogen and helium-- but not enough mass to
create the internal pressure and temperature necessary
to have nuclear fusion. So it became a planet, instead. ANDREW INGERSOLL: The
thought is that there was this cloud in the galaxy
that had the same composition as the Sun. And it collapsed
under its own gravity, and some stuff was left behind. And that stuff
became the planets. And the majority of
that stuff became Jupiter and the rest of it,
of course, went into the Sun. And then there were a couple
of little tiny leftovers, like Earth. NARRATOR: Jupiter's spinning
gases attracted like elements. And over time, grew bigger
and bigger in the process. Almost like an oyster creating
layers around a grain of sand to make a pearl. What gases and solids
Jupiter didn't ingest, it spat out into space. [music playing] NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: So Jupiter
is like your big brother in the schoolyard, protecting
you from bullies that might wreak havoc on your existence. CLAUDIA ALEXANDER: I tend
to think of it as more of the cosmic Frisbee guy. It's grabbing
things out of space, and it's also tossing
them back out. It ends up keeping those objects
from the inner solar system, where Earth and
Mars and Venus are. By cleaning some of the
debris up, kicking some of it out, shooting some
of it into the Sun-- where it'd be lost forever-- Jupiter cleaned out a path that
the other planets could exist in some sort of peace. NARRATOR: So dominant is
this Frisbee phenomenon, Earth may owe its very
existence to Jupiter. KEVIN BAINES: It influences
the courses of comets and even some meteors and asteroids. So that over the eons, the fact
that Jupiter is there helps dictate what happens in
the inner solar system. So really, the
presence of Jupiter may be one reason why we have
life on Earth and habitability and be able to have the
Earth's nice environment, instead of getting
pummeled by so many comets. [music playing] NARRATOR: There is no greater
proof of Jupiter's power play than what happened
during a seven-day period in July of 1994. A comet called Shoemaker-Levy
9 barrelled toward Jupiter. Once under Jupiter's influence,
there was no going back. A missile was on a crash
course with a ball of gas. Jupiter's gravitational
pull was so great that it broke the comet
into small pieces that came in one at a time. These pieces
assaulted the planet at a speed of 37
miles per second. MARGARET KIVELSON: When
you have a missile going at supersonic speeds,
you get a shock. You can see, sort of, clouds
of material being jetted up from beneath where it landed. NARRATOR: One of the fireballs
generated by the collision with Jupiter's atmosphere
flared 1,800 miles into space. Had Earth been in the
projectile's sights, the effects of such a smash up
would have been catastrophic, to say the least. Similar to the event that
wiped out the dinosaurs. The energies that were
released in those fragments hitting was larger than-- on the order of 10 or
20 times more powerful than the entire world
arsenal of bombs. Take Jupiter out
of the picture, bring this giant comet into
the inner solar system. Where would it have gone? We have no idea it. Might have crashed into Earth. [explosion] If that comet had
crashed into Earth, things would be a lot
different around here. NARRATOR: The experts believe
that comet strikes on Jupiter maybe 8,000 times more
frequent than those on Earth, thanks to the Frisbee effect. But it cuts both ways. Because Jupiter has
no value system. When it sees an errant comet,
it may attract it and swallow it up. But where it flings
it is anyone's guess. And so errant comets can
be flung in towards Earth. They can be flung into the
Sun, and they can be flung out of the solar system. NARRATOR: There's a
reason the planet rejects some of the space
junk heading its way. CLAUDIA ALEXANDER: Jupiter,
being the biggest object in the solar system,
has the most gravity. And so other objects--
little fleas-- that have their own
trajectory flying by are bent from where it
would be toward Jupiter and usually with
an acceleration. And that acceleration
can cause it, sometimes, to just be ejected completely. NARRATOR: No earthly
Frisbee thrower can match Jupiter's
flinging force. It is much faster than
any bullet ever known. It rejects things at a rate
of 30 miles per second. [music playing] Jupiter's wonders
are hard to fathom. They've captivated
man for centuries. Prehistoric humans
realized that it was moving among the stars, and it
was one of the planets that they appreciated. Jupiter was the
king of the gods, after all, in Roman mythology. NARRATOR: And there may be a
biblical reference to Jupiter. CLAUDIA ALEXANDER: Ever since
I was, like, five-years-old, I remember people-- that was the Star of Bethlehem. And whether or
not it really was, obviously, we have
no way of knowing. But it's not clear whether
the star that was talked about is a single star or whether they
met an astronomical alignment of objects in the sky. We don't really know. NARRATOR: It's known
as conjunction, in scientific terms. According to researchers,
Jupiter and Venus did appear as one large
star-like object in August 3 BC, and would have been visible
in the Eastern night sky. But it was Galileo, the
father of modern astronomy, who made the first recorded
sighting of the Jupiter system. In the early days of
1610, only about 18 months after the telescope
was invented, he got his own telescope,
and he looked at Jupiter. NARRATOR: In 1665, Jupiter's
most fascinating feature was discovered. Its giant red eye was actually
the eye of an enormous storm, unlike any experienced on Earth. This one has raged for
at least 300 years. This weather disturbance
is a meteorologist's dream. Jupiter's great red
spot is truly huge. You could take Earth
and filet it out, and it wouldn't even
really cover the spot. KEVIN BAINES: This storm
is the hugest storm in the solar system. Just to give you a feeling about
it, it's about 12,000 miles. And the Earth is only
8,000 miles wide. ANDREW INGERSOLL: And
the winds blow quite fast around the edge. But it's calm in the center. It's not like a hurricane,
which has an eye and very fast, turbulent
winds in the center. The red spot's rather calm. If you're in a balloon, it
might be a pleasant ride, as long as you avoided
the small scale stuff like the thunderstorms
and the turbulent places. Even though you'd be going very
fast, it might be quite calm. NARRATOR: Fast as in
350 miles an hour. The fastest winds ever
recorded here on Earth was 231 miles an hour. But is it an Earth-like storm? It's a giant collection
of clouds roiling around. Lightning going on. So we can only model and imagine
what kind of precipitation, but condensation, in the
form of condensed vapor of various gases. NARRATOR: This famous red spot
is a high pressure system that can take 10 days to
complete a rotation. It's really a
backwards hurricane. It's called an anti-cyclone--
that's the name for it. And so it goes backwards
from the direction of a typical hurricane. NARRATOR: That's not
the only curious thing. Hurricanes, as we know them,
need water in order to form. There's no water
engine in the red spot. This never-ending weather system
is feeding on something else. But what? Jupiter's great red
spot is something like a nonstop hurricane. It's a colossal storm,
complete with a violent wind and lightning. Storm chasers would love
to go running after it. Dr. Tim Dowling of the
University of Louisville is in the hunt for similar
phenomena here on Earth. The red spot, think of it as
a huge extra lens or egg-shape of mass. It's just an enormous thing. It sort of quiets
down the fluid. It presses it down into
the hotter interior so you don't get thunderstorms. But if you go on the
edge of the red spot, especially northwest,
you get some of the most horrific
thunderstorms you're going to find on Jupiter. NARRATOR: The spot
doesn't have an eye, and it isn't fueled by water. There's no ocean
over which it forms. What, then, keeps
it going and going? I've always likened
it, in my own view, as like a mini-volcano
inside of Jupiter. NARRATOR: Actually, an
atmospheric volcano. Dr. Baines believes that warmer
gases rise from heat deep within the planet. While trying to escape,
they create a vortex. So, for some reason, I believe
there's extra energy right there. NARRATOR: But it's
just a theory. Science is left without answers
to that question and others. Current theories cannot
quite explain why the spot is so well-formed and why
it stays in one place. The plot thickened
over the years as scientists learned even more. It became a deeper mystery. Because instead of everything
just smoothly going around the red spot,
we saw this turbulence. And there were smaller
scale structures that would come and go every day. And it was chaotic
and turbulent. And yet, the red spot just
existed and sailed on. NARRATOR: Jupiter's
storms aren't limited to the great red spot. Cloud decks three layers thick
hover and cover the planet. If you were inside the
atmosphere of Jupiter, you would hear
very loud thunder. In fact, the thunder actually
travels four times faster on Jupiter than
it does on Earth. It's about 3,000 miles an hour. So rain falls twice
as fast on Jupiter. The charge separation that
pulls the positive charge to the top of the clouds, the
negative charge to the bottom of clouds is twice as efficient
on Jupiter, for that reason alone. Because the rain is
falling so much faster. Towers of cumulus convection
that you see on Jupiter are three times taller. They go up 30 miles. Whereas on Earth, they
go up 6 or 7 miles. [music playing] NARRATOR: It would be
impossible to survive within the great red spot, with
its 350 mile an hour winds. By comparison,
Hurricane Wilma, which had the highest recorded
winds of any earthly storm, slammed into the
Yucatan Peninsula in 2005 with barely a breath-- 175 mile an hour blasts. Our weather is simple. Jupiter's is complex. Now on Jupiter, you just
basically have one storm system sort of stacked on
another, stacked on another with lots and lots of room. Basically, these are the
storms in their natural state. NARRATOR: These storms
move relentlessly within Jupiter's other
distinct feature-- streams of fierce jets that
continually circle the planet. Scientists are only beginning
to understand what they are and where they come from. JON AURNOU: There's a massive
eastward flow of material. And that means material
flowing more than 1 and 1/2 football
fields per second. That's really moving, where
you don't want to be in that. NARRATOR: 29 other belts
and zones of varying widths extend outward from there. They are what give Jupiter
its characteristic appearance. They move in
alternating directions. Some eastward, some westward. JON AURNOU: They're
much smaller scale-- the high latitude jets-- than the equatorial ones. As far as in
comparison to Earth, these are massive, super
fast, high speed winds. And yet, they're just
going back and forth. NARRATOR: The
planet's rotation rate has something to do with it. Jupiter generates a lot of
energy because it really moves. So the very nature
of the spinning causes Jupiter to not
just have one jet stream, but many jet streams going
in opposite directions along the planet. And so you can see these zones. So what you have is an
exaggerated version of Earth's basic weather pattern. NARRATOR: The spectacular swirls
are created in surface clouds where the zones meet. It's believed that the energy
ultimately powering this belt phenomenon comes from
intense heat deep within. It's not unlike something
we see every day. KEVIN BAINES: If I boil a
pot of water on the stove, it'll start bubbling. And bubbles come up from the
bottom and try to get out. Trying to circulate that
water that current's around. So that's-- same
thing inside Jupiter. We have gases and
liquids down there that are trying to get the heat out. JON AURNOU: There are basic
questions, basic pieces of physics to go after
to explain massive jets. Shouldn't we be able
to explain that? NARRATOR: Earth has just
one primary jet stream. It moves eastward,
and another major flow that blows westward--
the trade winds. Triple that power and you've
got the jet streams of Jupiter. Totally different from Earth. And yet, I should be careful. Not totally different from
Earth, just Earth on steroids. NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: And
you ask yourself, wow. If I understood what's
going on on Jupiter, Earth would be just
a piece of cake. NARRATOR: Jupiter's
mysteries aren't limited to the planet itself. Some of its most
intriguing elements are circling around it. Jupiter's got
several dozen moons that are big enough to be seen. It's probably got a lot more
that are too small to be seen with current technology. And no doubt, in coming years,
more will be discovered. KEVIN BAINES: Some of
the moons are almost the size of some planets. So really, Jupiter is its
own little solar system. NARRATOR: Thanks to its
incredible gravitational pull, it sucked in asteroids, along
with other space debris. For the most part,
there is order. But there are some erratic
moons in orbit around Jupiter. It's managed chaos. Can you imagine
a bunch of runners in a track in their lanes
that each runner stays in. They won't collide. That's kind of how
celestial mechanics. NARRATOR: Each moon holds
its own fascination. Four of Jupiter's
prominent moons were discovered by Galileo. He first observed that they
revolved around the planet. They are named for Jupiter-- the gods lovers. KEVIN BAINES: The
first major moon you come to is Io, which is
this very active place with lots of volcanoes. It's L all the time going off. NARRATOR: Shooting out
magma 200 miles into space, Io is a wonder, pockmarked
with over 100 volcanoes. Some the size of California,
which seemed to turn themselves on and off. Ganymede is the largest
moon in our solar system-- five times the size
of Earth's moon. Callisto is the most
heavily cratered. It has clearly taken a
beating in its lifetime. Then there's Europa, the
ice queen to Jupiter's king. No one knows it to
make up for sure. It looks like a cracked egg. It really looks like the
whole thing had liquid water on it it's some time. It froze, and it cracked. And we believe
that these patterns are due to tidal
forces that crack it. NARRATOR: As alien
as Europa seems, it is smooth and glassy in
some spots, hilly in others. In fact, it is
remarkably similar to one of Earth's frozen wonderlands. There is a lake in
Antarctica called Lake Vostok that scientists think is
an analogy to what we see on Europa. Antarctica has a
huge thick ice crust. And underneath, there
is this liquid lake. And we think that this may
be very similar to the water ice underneath the surface
that we see on Europa. KEVIN BAINES: You go
down through that crust, go through the ice enough,
you'll get liquid water. And we are very convinced
that there's liquid water down there. That's the only place that we
know of, besides the Earth, which has liquid water and large
bodies that have been there-- we believe-- for more than a million
or 2 million years. NARRATOR: And where there's
water, could there be life? Jupiter's moon Europa is
bursting with secrets. It may even have warm
thermal vents deep below its frozen crust. In fact, an immense ocean--
bigger than the Pacific Ocean-- worth of liquid water down
there that's just sitting there for things to happen to it. NARRATOR: The presence of
water means one thing-- we may not be alone. I want to go ice
fishing on Europa. Cut a hole, put a
submersible, look around, see if anything swims
up to the camera lens and licks the camera. That's what I want to do. NARRATOR: One scientist is
planning just such a fishing trip. At this outdoor lab
near Austin, Texas, hopes are hanging
on a little robot. This is designed for
exploration in unknown territory-- completely
unknown territory-- and the search for
biological life. NARRATOR: It's a Deep Phreatic
Thermal Explorer or DEPTHX, for short. It's proving ground right
now is a local quarry. And there are big
plans for its future. If everything went
according to plan, you would launch around 2016. It would be at Europa by 2018. And by 2019, for
certain, we'd know whether there's life off Earth. That's the game. NARRATOR: DEPTHX is the
brainchild of engineer Bill Stone. He and a team of scientists have
staked their reputations on it. They've spent six years
developing the concept and building the prototype. It's part of an
ambitious project that would see it carried into space,
sent through 6 miles of ice, and into Europa's ocean. To divide it down into
all the various vehicles, you have a parent vehicle
which takes you to orbit around the moon, Europa. There will be a lander. It'll land on the ice. Then there's a second
stage of the lander which melts its way through 3 to
5 kilometers of ice cap. And then at that point, you
kick out the third stage. [music playing] We need a fast-moving
device that would be sort of torpedo-shaped. Most likely, nuclear propelled. And that would drive for
thousands of kilometers around the central
ocean of Europa. NARRATOR: Is that
really feasible? NASA thinks so. The space agency is
onboard with money and it's blessing--
an investment in the search for life. [music playing] If life exists on
Jupiter's moon Europa, could it walk, talk, or fly? BONNIE BURATTI: It
would be little viruses or you know, maybe
at best, bacteria. We would expect only to
see primitive life forms. But they might be
similar to things that we see on the Earth. But we just don't know. NARRATOR: Scientists are
encouraged by the discovery of strange and hardy lifeforms
found in the most inhospitable places on Earth. Tube worms, for example, survive
and thrive in total darkness. Extreme pressure
isn't a problem. The creatures were discovered
in 1977, several miles below the surface of
the Galapagos Rift. They exist in water near
super-heated thermal vents. It's believed that these
very conditions-- darkness, high pressure, and
hydrothermal vents-- are present on Europa. [music playing] You could have hydrothermal
vents kicking up warmth and nutrients down near
to the core of Europa, and that organisms would
have fed off of that material just like they might
have in the early Earth. NARRATOR: And while
tube worms might not be lurking beneath Europa's icy
shell, something else could be. Its microbial life is
the bulk of life on Earth. We expect that branches
of that type of life will exist on Europa,
just simply because water is the food feature. NARRATOR: Finding it consumes
scientist Bill Stone. His DEPTHX may answer
a question that excites seekers of knowledge. And we have the robot
behavior look for signs of life, and then try to collect a sample
based on what it's sensing. NARRATOR: Stone's baby
is in its infancy. At the same time, it is
futuristic and advanced. It's a high tech toy
like no other, that might show our world what
another is all about. Our first contact with
extraterrestrial life may be on Jupiter's
moon, Europa. The DEPTHX robot, or more
accurately, hydro bot, is being designed to ultimately
think, move, and explore without help from man. And that is all to be
done by the robot itself. We're not going to be
guiding it to do that. That's going to be a big step
forward in what we would call robot science autonomy. [music playing] NARRATOR: It's a real life HAL-- the star of a new space odyssey. Where it's literally,
hit a button, and let it dive
below the surface, and we won't see
it, again, until it tells us what's down there. NARRATOR: DEPTHX will be
able to extract and analyze samples on its own as
it navigates the ocean. BILL STONE: This little tube
you see down here [inaudible] pull in water samples, and
store them in 1 liter bags. We have five of them on board. But before it does
that, it actually powers through a series of micro
pumps over here on the left, and brings it into an
onboard microscope. And that microscope
will take images of what's in the water,
down to about 5 microns. So we can see most of the
typical types of microbial life from 5 to 200 microns on screen. The robot will use
that to discriminate, to determine if there is life. And then grab a sample. NARRATOR: DEPTHX and its
systems must be made smaller to work in space. And it still must pass
trials under ice floes. We are testing
this in Antarctica to make sure it all
works totally under ice. KEVIN BAINES: The question of
life on Europa is probably, the big unknown. Because that would change our
whole view of the universe, basically. If this little moon
is sitting out there in this hostile environment
of Jupiter that can have life form on it, that means that-- that probably tells us that
life is almost everywhere. The science is there. I think searching for life
is one of the most compelling things that we can. As not only as scientists, but
as a race, as human beings. NARRATOR: It's a giant leap
and not just for mankind. No, for robot-kind. NARRATOR: Of all Jupiter's
imposing features, none is more impressive
than the one you cannot see. Its bigger, by far,
than the great red spot, more dynamic than
the bands of jet streams, and is lethal as
any killer known to man. You have one of the most
powerful radiation environments in the solar system,
aside from the Sun. The magnetic field of
Jupiter is the largest entity, I believe, in the solar system. NARRATOR: It is a bubble
450 million miles long, buzzing with
electrically-charged particles. Its Jupiter's magnetosphere. The Sun sitting here
putting out the solar wind. And the solar wind
is charged particles of protons and electrons. NARRATOR: These
particles flow along at 1 million miles an hour. And Jupiter basically captures
these protons and electrons-- all these charged particles
like electrical currents-- and it has it then in the
space, circling around Jupiter. NARRATOR: No word in
the English language accurately conveys the
enormity of this phenomenon. The magnetosphere of
Jupiter is the biggest object in the solar system. It's a lot bigger than the Sun. [music playing] NARRATOR: Comparisons
are the best measure of this mega mighty wonder. If it were visible
in the night sky, it would be many, many
times bigger than the moon. It's enormous. Even though it's five times
as far away from Earth as the Sun is, it still would
look immense in the night sky. NARRATOR: If visible, it
would take a familiar form-- a wind sock. There's a rounded
section facing away from the planet
in one direction, with a tail flowing
out the other. This wind sock reaches
the outer orbit of Saturn. Power planet Jupiter generates
up to 10 million amps of electrical circuit. The biggest planet
in the solar system can conduct electricity all
the way through and around it. NARRATOR: This conductivity
creates a phenomenon we can see, when the excited
charged particles escape. Jupiter has auroras. Because when those
particles leak in and crash into the upper
atmosphere, it glows. Just as Earth has auroras. NARRATOR: These ghostly auroras
are 1,000 times more powerful than Earth's Northern
and Southern Lights. They measure up to
1,200 miles across. If you could stand under them,
they'd filled the entire sky, moving at lightning speed-- 10,000 miles an hour. Jupiter's magnetic field
is a monster, and it roars. In fact, it's speaking
to us right now. Jupiter, the giant of the solar
system, has something to say, if you're listening. We can hear what we
call lion roars because it has this roaring sound. We can hear whistler modes. We can hear hiss and
whistles that are going [imitates sound]. And these are all
indications of dynamics-- things that are happening
in the magnetosphere now. [music playing] NARRATOR: If you find yourself
driving on a dark desert highway, your AM
radio might just tune in to the strange sounds
of Jupiter's magnetosphere. The bursts are as short as
a few seconds and as long as a couple of minutes. They come and go
every hour or two. Most of it sounds like
static, but every once in awhile, you pick up something
that sounds like a rising tone or a falling tone. NARRATOR: Some listeners
have described audio spasms that sound like woodpeckers or
waves crashing on the beach. The noise is disturbing. But just why the
planet was talking remained a mystery,
until Voyager 2 passed through the outer
magnetosphere in 1979. Nobody really understood,
for a long time, how those signals
were generated. So that was one of the
things that was on my mind when I got interested in
Jupiter-- what in the world was going on with
these radio emissions? NARRATOR: It is one of the few
secrets finally surrendered by Jupiter. ANDREW INGERSOLL: And that
answered some questions, but it raised new ones. And I think that's
the way it should be. If you don't have questions, it
gets kind of boring and dull. So I think that the fact
that planets don't give up their secrets easily
or the universe doesn't, that's
part of the game. It's what makes it interesting. NARRATOR: Jupiter keeps
astounding and confounding scientists. One surprise came in 1979, when
it was discovered that Jupiter has a ring. It's nothing on the
order of Saturns. Still, it's another
feature that fascinates. All of the giant planets
have rings, probably leftover from when
the planets formed. And the moons coagulated out
of the gas that was there, and then it could
be a failed moon. So Jupiter's ring comes from
material being knocked off of one of the interior moons. So it's dust that's collected
from the material that's coming in from outside moons. NARRATOR: The ring is slowly
moving as new material flows into it. And there's a whole other
side to the planet that remains a mystery. Why do these storm
spots keep forming? There's the dark
spot, for example. Glimpses of it were
first spied in 1997. It appeared to be a huge ominous
cloud, twice the size of Earth, hovering above
Jupiter's north pole. There is a host of
other spots, too. ANDREW INGERSOLL: There
are other smaller cousins that have come and gone. There were three
ovals, about half or a third the size
of the red spot. And they, sort of, occupied
the same latitude band in the southern hemisphere. And they'd been around
since the 1930s. And amateur astronomers
saw them form. And they were around till the
late '90s, and two of them merged with each other. And then, the remaining two
merged, and now there's one. NARRATOR: And it
keeps transforming. It turned red
about six months ago, and now we're calling it the
little red spot because it turned color. Now why did it turn
color is a big question. So there's chemistry going on
or some type of extra dynamics that's going on
that just kicked in, and we need to
start studying that. [music playing] NARRATOR: Jupiter is a
hostile and restless planet. It's giant gaseous
body and violent storms make it one of the
most alien environments in the solar system. Even though it is half
a billion miles from us, we may have more in common
with our cousin planet than we think. I think the lesson
to learn from Jupiter here is whatever is going on
in our climate and weather patterns here on Earth,
Jupiter has more of it. But Earth is not an island. And there are better examples
of what's going on on Earth than even Earth itself. NARRATOR: For
scientists, Jupiter is the king of many questions
concerning our solar system, and could possibly
hold the answers.
