Citizen science reveals insight into Jupiter

The discovery was triggered by amateur astronomer, Dr Steven Hill , based in Colorado .

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 coloured filters.

The University of Oxford's Patrick Irwin said: 'I am astonished that such a simple method is able to probe so deep in the atmosphere and demonstrate so clearly that the main clouds cannot be pure ammonia ice'.

Professor Irwin and his team also applied the method to VLT/MUSE observations of Saturn and have found similar agreement in the derived ammonia maps with other studies, including one determined from James Webb Space Telescope observations. Similarly, they have found the main level of reflection to be well below the expected ammonia condensation level, suggesting that similar photochemical processes are occurring in Saturn ’s atmosphere. Clouds and ammonia in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn determined from a band-depth analysis of VLT/MUSE observations, Patrick G J Irwin et al, Journal of Geophysical Research Planets .