Jupiter is without a doubt inhospitable, but it does have one thing going for it — increasing evidence that it’s rich in water.



Astrophysicist Gordon L. Bjoraker of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center recently published a paper in the Astronomical Journal, outlining how he and his team of researchers detected signatures of water emitting from Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. By studying the giant storm with ground-based telescopes, they were able to observe molecular hydrogen and oxygen at infrared wavelengths, backing up theories that Jupiter could actually be abundant in water.



Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

Water probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the enormous gas giant, but it isn’t all that unfathomable if you think about it. Back in 1973, the Pioneer spacecraft swung by Jupiter and detected a magnetic field with features similar to Earth’s, leading researchers to wonder if the gaseous planet had a core, and if so, what was it made out of?



Follow-up spacecraft have since detected chemical elements that indicate Jupiter’s core could be 10 times the mass of Earth, and made up of rocky material and water ice. We’ve also witnessed strong thunder and lightning coming from Jovian clouds, which, as far as we know, only occurs in the presence of moisture.



“The moons that orbit Jupiter are mostly water ice, so the whole neighborhood has plenty of water,” said Bjoraker in a press release. “Why wouldn’t the planet – which is this huge gravity well, where everything falls into it – be water rich, too?”



Researchers believe that the Great Red Spot, which stretches about 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) in diameter and extends 200 miles (300 kilometers) into Jupiter’s atmosphere, is composed of three layers of clouds. It has a top layer that’s made up of ammonia, a middle layer that’s a mix of ammonia and sulfur, and a third layer that houses water ice and liquid water.



To find evidence of this theory, Bjoraker and his team of researchers used data from the W.M. Keck Observatory’s high-powered infrared spectrometer, as well as the IShell 1.1-5.3 micron spectrograph at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility. Combined, these two instruments were able to probe the storm and detect light at infrared wavelengths, revealing which chemical elements were protruding through its clouds.