Composition, Clouds, and Origin of Jupiter’s Atmosphere— a Case for Deep Multiprobes into Giant Planets

Current hypotheses of the formation of Jupiter and evolution of its atmosphere invoke large quantities of water, so that O/H = 1–3 × any of the other heavy elements, C, N, S, Ar, Kr, and Xe, that are 3±1 × solar, ratioed to H. However, no quantitative results on O/H in the deep well-mixed atmosphere are available. Since water was presumably the original carrier of heavy elements to Jupiter, determination of its abundance in the deep atmosphere is of fundamental importance to the models of formation of Jupiter and the origin of its atmosphere. Furthermore, since meteorological and dynamical effects could cause the mixing ratios of water and possibly other volatiles to vary over the planet, it is essential to measure the full atmospheric composition, simultaneously with the related phenomena, such as winds and cloud properties. The best way to accomplish this is by deploying deep multiprobes into different regions of Jupiter, followed by multiprobes into Saturn, Neptune and the Uranus atmospheres for comparison.