A team of scientists is suggesting sending up a swarm of tiny probes into Jupiter's atmosphere to learn more about Earth's closest gas giant planet.
The idea is that each probe serves a different function: one probe might take images of the planet, another measures the upper atmosphere's chemical composition, another could measure the composition of the lower atmosphere and so on. All the information gathered would provide insight into Jupiter and its atmosphere, which is the deepest in the solar system.
Although we could send a rover to Jupiter, the effort would be tricky and expensive. Also, a rover only collects information about the surface of planets and not their atmospheres because it can't transmit data quickly since its fall to the surface is slow, meaning that its communication relay is probably farther away.
However, small probes would not have such limitations. And they're now possible thanks to how small electronics technology now is. We've already sent tiny satellites into Earth's orbit to collect specific data about our planet and the space around it, so the technology is already there.
"Our concept shows that for a small enough probe, you can strip off the parachute and still get enough time in the atmosphere to take meaningful data while keeping the relay close and the data rate high," says John Moores of the Centre for Research in the Earth and Space Sciences (CRESS), at York University, Toronto.
Even more importantly, the European Space Agency (ESA) has plans for a future Jupiter mission in 2030 that would send a spacecraft to orbit the planet. It would be simple to include the small probes with that mission, and the spacecraft could shoot the microprobes into Jupiter's atmosphere once it reaches its destination.
Much of Jupiter's atmosphere remains a mystery to scientists. In particular, Jupiter's "eye," or the Great Red Spot (GRS) is fascinating, but still an enigma. The Great Red Spot is a massive storm in Jupiter's atmosphere. Although we know that this storm is typically colder than other clouds around it, we do not know why. We also don't know what causes its reddish color.
Learning about Jupiter's atmosphere, though, doesn't just teach us more about Jupiter. Jupiter, as the solar system's largest planet, makes up two-thirds of the solar system's mass. Understanding more about it could lead to insight about how planets form. Also, Jupiter sees a lot of impacts on its surface from asteroids and scientists hope that studying its atmosphere yields a better understanding of such bodies.
Finally, the best image we have of Jupiter is from 1995 with a resolution of only about 9 miles per pixel. New high-resolution camera technology on a probe could take unprecedented photos of the planet and unveil features that we haven't seen before.
