Swarm of microprobes could help unlock secrets of Jupiter's atmosphere

Swarm of microprobes with different sensors could be fired into the clouds of Jupiter, which will help unlock secrets of planet's atmosphere.

The probes would last an estimated 15 minutes according to planetary scientists. Transmitting 20 megabits of data over fifteen minutes would be sufficient to allow scientists to get a picture of a large part of the atmosphere of the planet.

Much smaller probes, made possible by the miniaturization of electronics, cameras and other instruments, would survive the fall through Jupiter's atmosphere for much longer without a parachute, according to John Moores of the Centre for Research in the Earth and Space Sciences (CRESS), at York University, Toronto, and colleagues there and at the University of Toronto.

The SMARA mission might help address various aspects of planetary science. For instance, given that more than two-thirds of the total mass of the solar system, not including the Sun, forms Jupiter, its study was important for understanding the nature of the solar nebula from which our sun and all its planets formed.

Additionally, Jupiter is under constant bombardment from small bodies, such as asteroids, and again, understanding its atmosphere would shed new light on the nature of these.

The planet's atmosphere may even represent a historical record of impacts again providing information about the composition of the solar system

Additionally, Jupiter was the deepest of all the planetary atmospheres in the solar system and so offers an exciting laboratory for understanding flow dynamics, cloud microphysics and radiative transfer under conditions that are very different from those we see on Earth and the other terrestrial planets.

Also, Jupiter is the closest of the gas giants but there are now known to be many more similar planets orbiting other stars.

Studying the nearest gas giant neighbor in close-up detail might allow understanding the gas giants of distant stars with greater clarity. NASA's robotic Galileo probe, which orbited Jupiter in 1995, had no camera, so the swarm of microprobes would represent a first look at Jupiter with resolution greater than 15 kilometers per pixel.

The study is published in the International Journal Space Science and Engineering.