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E Arth's crust and oceans give our planet an obvious boundary. But jump to Jupiter and none of these edges are visible. Instead, its gaseous atmosphere gradually compresses itself until it becomes liquid
Nobody knows if there is a solid nucleus in its center. But with luck, data from NASA's ambitious Juno mission will reveal what lies at the heart of Jupiter. Already images of exquisite swirling cloud peaks have been returned, and the accompanying data reveal strong local variations in the magnetic and gravitational fields of the planet. "The most likely way to happen is that strong winds below the cloud surface disturb these fields," says Gary Glatzmaier of the University of California.
His recent computer simulations (published last week in PNAS) suggest strong east-west winds observed extend deep inside, twisting and shearing the magnetic field.
Glatzmaier chose to include a small solid inner core in his model, and was surprised to see that the presence of this nucleus produced two oscillating current jet winds on the surface. Now, he looks forward to seeing if any of Juno's upcoming upcoming flights will reveal these oscillating water jets, and will confirm the presence of a core.
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