Jupiter’s atmospheric jet streams extend thousands of kilometres deep

The depth to which Jupiter’s observed east–west jet streams extend has been a long-standing question^1,2. Resolving this puzzle has been a primary goal for the Juno spacecraft^3,4, which has been in orbit around the gas giant since July 2016. Juno’s gravitational measurements have revealed that Jupiter’s gravitational field is north–south asymmetric⁵, which is a signature of the planet’s atmospheric and interior flows⁶. Here we report that the measured odd gravitational harmonics J₃, J₅, J₇ and J₉ indicate that the observed jet streams, as they appear at the

Source:  nature