Phases of Water on Jupiter

Jupiter

• Jupiter is about 90 percent hydrogen and 10 percent helium with traces of methane, water, ammonia and rock, and probably has a core of rocky material amounting to 10 to 15 times the mass of the Earth. Just above the core is a layer of liquid metallic hydrogen, an exotic form of hydrogen only possible due to the extreme pressure of the planet's atmosphere. The liquid hydrogen also conducts electricity and is the source of Jupiter's immense magnetic field. There is less water on Jupiter than was previously thought by astronomers, though water is crucial to the planet's weather patterns.

Water Ice

• Water ice crystals would be found in Jupiter's lower layers of clouds. Clouds in the upper layers are made up mostly of ammonia ice and ammonium hydrosulfide. If there is water ice near the core, it would be frozen because of the immense atmospheric pressure and not the temperature. Water ice, if there is any, would be found between 4,000 and 8,300 miles down from the top of the Jovian atmosphere, and the temperature would be between 34,000 to 43,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Liquid Water

• Water in its liquid phase is also likely to be found at the outermost layer of the atmosphere, along with carbon dioxide, methane and other molecules. The enormous lightning storms on Jupiter also suggest that there's water in the clouds because water is a polar molecule that allows lightning to form. The size of these storms range from 124 to over 621 miles across and they're found at all latitudes.

Water Vapor

• Water vapor, or water in its gaseous phase, is also found in the atmosphere, along with methane and ammonia. The Galileo space probe's infrared observations of the high thick clouds in Jupiter's north equatorial belt showed high concentrations of water vapor. All in all Jupiter's atmosphere is believed to contain around 0.0004 percent water.