For Jupiter

The notion of radium-filled caverns creating precious jewels and metals by transmutation seems to have been a fixture in science fiction stories of the period. The 1929 novella The Radium Pool, first published in Science Wonder Stories by Ed Earl Repp, also features a radium pool that transmutes a cave into precious metals and jewels, acts as a fountain of youth, and provides telepathic and death ray abilities to Jovians who have come to appropriate its radium for Jupiter, the most powerful planet in the universe. 

To the accuracy of the measurement of molecular weights for the giant planets, only hydrogen and helium have significant abundances. The relative proportions of these elements, expressed as the molar fraction He/H, are 0.068+0.002 for Jupiter, 0.068+0.013 for Saturn, 0.076+0.016 for Uranus, and 0.100+0.016 for Neptune (Lunine, 2004). None of these ratios are like those of the nebula (0.085, Table 4.1). 

Phase diagram for hydrogen, showing the conditions under which hydrogen changes from molecular (H2) to metallic (H+). Below the gray He saturation curves, He and H are immiscible. Adiabats for Jupiter and Saturn cross the saturation curve once H becomes metallic, but the Uranus (and presumably Neptune) adiabats do not reach such high pressures. 

Models of the interiors of the giant planets depend on assumed temperature-pressure-density relationships that are not very well constrained. Models for Jupiter and Saturn feature concentric layers (from the outside inward) of molecular hydrogen, metallic hydrogen, and ice, perhaps with small cores of rock (rocky cores are permissible but not required by current data). Uranus and Neptune models are similar, except that there is no metallic hydrogen, the interior layers of ice are thicker, and the rocky cores are relatively larger. 

Several applications of IR spectroscopy to astrophysics have been made. Small amounts of methane in the earth s atmosphere have been detected by the observation of weak IR absorption lines in solar radiation that has passed through the earth s atmosphere. Intense IR absorption bands of CH4 have been found in the spectra of the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Bands of ammonia have been observed for Jupiter and Saturn bands of C02 have been observed in the Venusian spectrum and bands of H20 have been observed in the Martian spectrum. 

The necessary starting point for any study of the chemistry of a planetary atmosphere is the dissociation of molecules, which results from the absorption of solar ultraviolet radiation. This atmospheric chemistry must take into account not only the general characteristics of the atmosphere (constitution), but also its particular chemical constituents (composition). The absorption of solar radiation can be attributed to carbon dioxide (C02) for Mars and Venus, to molecular oxygen (02) for the Earth, and to methane (CH4) and ammonia (NH3) for Jupiter and the outer planets. 

Figure 2.6 Carbon- and nitrogen-isotopic compositions of presolar SiC grains. Predictions from stellar models are shown for comparison. Solar metallicity AGB star models Nollett et al. (2003), Type II SN Rauscher et al. (2002), novae Jose et al. (2004). For data sources see Lodders Amari (2005) Zinner (2007). Note that for the solar 14N/15N ratio the value inferred for Jupiter s atmosphere is shown.

There are several comments on that. First of all, there is a path that somehow you have to follow in order to compare your results with existing ones. We only meant to change one parameter, the one that astrophysics was telling us we should change. As for your second remark a hypothetical atmosphere, well, it is hypothetical to a certain extent. There are in fact new data available for Jupiter and Titan. The composition used may be regarded as having been suggested by Titan. 

At the time, more than a dozen planetary satellites had already been discovered for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. None had been found for Venus or Mercury, nor were they likely to be found, given the proximity of these planets to the Sun. Mars likewise had no satellites. .. or, at least, none that had yet been discovered. 

The four giant planets have hydrogen- and helium-rich compositions reminiscent of the Sun, but all of them clearly depart from strict solar composition in that their densities are too high and the few heavier elements whose tropospheric abundances can be measured all show clear evidence of enrichment. For all four giant planets we have spectroscopic compositional data on the few compounds that remain uncondensed in the visible portion of their atmospheres, above their main cloud layers. These include ammonia, methane, phosphine, and germane. For Jupiter, these volatile elements (C, N, S, P and Ge) are enriched relative to their solar abundances by about a factor of five. For Saturn, with no detection of germane, the enhancement of C, N, and P is about a factor of 10. For Uranus and Neptune the methane enrichment factor is at least 60, consonant with their much higher uncompressed densities. 

Theoretical calculations of the contraction history of Saturn have been carried out by Pollack et al. (1976), using techniques and models similar to those employed for Jupiter by Graboske et al. (1975). In this case, the calculated radius is slightly too large. The predicted luminosity is somewhat smaller than measured. 

The theoretical models are fairly successful in reproducing Voyager data for Jupiter (McConnell and Majeed 1987, Cravens 1987), but less so for Saturn, In part because there appear to occur large variations In the electron density profiles (Atreya et al. 1984). 

FIGURE 24 Typical 13-cm echo spectra for the terrestrial planets are compared to echo spectra for Jupiter s icy moon Europe. The abscissa has units of half the echo bandwidth. 

The retrieval method has been used extensively for temperature profile retrieval in both the terrestrial and other planetary atmospheres. Examples of profiles obtained by this technique for Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are shown in Fig. 8.2.2. Also included is a Titan profile obtained from radio occultation data. The profiles for Earth and Mars were derived from measurements obtained with the Fourier transform spectrometers carried on Nimbus 3, 4, and Mariner 9, respectively. In both cases data from the 15 ptm. CO2 absorption band were used. The profiles for the outer planets were obtained by inversion of measurements from the Voyager Fourier transform spectrometers. For Jupiter and Saturn, data from the S(0) and S(l) collision-induced H2 lines between 200 and 600 cm were used, along with measurements from the CH4 V4-band centered near 1300 cm . Because of the extremely low temperatures encountered on Uranus and Neptune, adequate signal-to-noise ratio for the retrieval of vertical thermal stmctures was obtained... 

The emitted thermal flux k F(0) at — 0 is a quantity of considerable importance. If there is a relatively negligible internal heat flux, the emitted flux is in global balance with the absorbed solar flux. This situation prevails at Venus, Earth, Mars, Titan, and possibly Uranus. As discussed in detail in Section 9.4, a non-negligible internal heat flux exists for Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. In these cases the emitted... 

Sufficiently large quantities of spatially resolved data have been obtained for all four giant planets to permit the meridional, upper tropospheric thermal stmcture of each to be reasonably well defined. The latitudinal dependence of temperature at selected pressure levels are shown in Fig. 9.2.6 for Jupiter. These results have... 

Using the same on-board calibration with the diffuse reflecting plate, a geometric albedo of 0.242 0.012 was derived. Again combining this with a Pioneer-derived phase integral led to a Bond albedo of 0.342 0.030. Because of the uncertainty of the radiometer calibration this number must be taken with the same reservations as the corresponding number for Jupiter. 

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