Space.com article By Science & Astronomy
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot has swirled for hundreds of years, but the source of its distinctive color remains a mystery. New laboratory experiments are working to produce that color — and others found in Jupiter’s stormy cloud tops — here on Earth, and researchers have found that radiation and temperature play key roles in changing the color of some of the transparent material found in the clouds.
A primary suspect in coloring Jupiter’s clouds is ammonium hydrosulfide, a type of salt. Formed by ionized ammonium and bisulfide, it quickly decomposes at typical atmospheric conditions and temperatures on Earth, making it challenging to investigate its properties.
“Models predict that ammonium hydrosulfide is the third most abundant cloud component [on Jupiter], behind ammonia and water,” Mark Loeffler, an astrochemist at Northern Arizona University, told Space.com by email. Loeffler worked with fellow chemist Reggie Hudson, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, to attempt to re-create the color of Jupiter’s clouds in the laboratory.
Read the entire article: What Makes Jupiter’s Great Spot Red? It’s Still a Mystery