Publication Date:
2006-02-14
Description:
The origin of carbon monoxide has been a puzzle for some time, and it has become apparent that CO serves as a tracer of disequilibrium processes in the Jovian atmosphere. High resolution spectra with a Fabry-Perot spectrometer was obtained. From a detailed synthetic spectral analysis of the CO line profiles, it was established that the CO is located in the troposphere of Jupiter. It must therefore be a product of convection upward from hotter levels in the deep atmosphere, and is not a product of infall of material from above the stratosphere. Six lines of CO in Saturn was detected, a surprising result because disequilibrium models predicted that the CO mixing ratio would be too low to be observable if upward convection is the dominant mechanism. Therefore several possibilities for the origin of the CO now exist, none completely satisfactory at this time.
Keywords:
ASTRONOMY
Type:
NASA, Washington Reports of Planetary Astronomy, 1985; p 40-41
Format:
text
