planetary systemNo planets are similar. Thirty years of exploring the solar system have provided us with this conclusion. Some planets experience little or no atmosphere. And some like Venus and Jupiter have substantial gaseous envelopes. Planetary missions over and again have accentuated the facts that simple sets of physical laws can interact to produce an infinite variety of material incarnations. Using data from the various space missions that have investigated the “air” on both planets, Gerald Schubert and David Baker, computational geophysicists, have been modeling the atmospheres of Venus and Jupiter. Their work helps to explain mysterious data from the missions–21 to Venus, six to Jupiter. It will help in the design of future Venusian and Jovian robotic explorers.



Via: National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure