Citizen science reveals that Jupiter's colorful clouds are not made of ammonia ice
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Collaborative work by amateur and professional astronomers has helped to resolve a long-standing misunderstanding about the composition of Jupiter's clouds. Instead of being formed of ammonia ice—the conventional view—it now appears they are likely to be composed of ammonium hydrosulfide mixed with smog.
The new discovery was triggered by amateur astronomer, Dr. Steven Hill, based in Colorado. Recently, he demonstrated that the abundance of ammonia and cloud-top pressure in Jupiter's atmosphere could be mapped using commercially-available telescopes and a few specially colored filters.
Remarkably, these initial results not only showed that the abundance of ammonia in Jupiter's atmosphere could be mapped by amateur astronomers, they also showed that the clouds reside too deeply within Jupiter's warm atmosphere to be consistent with the clouds being ammonia ice.
