Characteristics of the Galileo probe entry site from Earth‐based remote sensing observations

Abstract

A reassessment of ground‐based observations confirms to better than a 98% confidence level that the Galileo probe entered a 5‐μm hot spot, a region of unusual clarity and dryness, some 900±300 km north of its southern boundary. Cloud conditions at that point were similar to those in the center of this region, some 600 km further north. At the time of the probe entry, the region was evolving to a slightly larger size and even thinner cloud conditions, as evidenced by its rapidly brightening appearance at 4.78 μm. The low reflectivity of the region in red light is highly anticorrelated with 4.78‐μm thermal emission, but this correlation breaks down in the blue. In general, the reflectivity of most hot spots is remarkably uniform, although the 4.78‐μm thermal emission is highly variable. A cloud structure most consistent with both the observed reflected sunlight and thermal emission properties consists of two layers: (1) a cloud layer above the 450‐mbar level extending up to the 150‐mbar level that probably consists of submicron sized particles and (2) a tropospheric cloud that is probably below the 1‐bar level, possibly ammonia hydrosulfide, with low optical thickness in the infrared. A population of particles larger than ∼3 μm, clearly present at the NH3 ice cloud level outside hot spots, is absent inside them. The NH3 gas abundance near 300–400 mbar pressure does not appear to be unusually depleted in hot spots. Zonal structures in the tropospheric temperature field near the probe entry site were not correlated with the location of 5‐μm hot spots but moved at speeds closer to the internal rotation rate of the planet. The properties of the tropospheric thermal waves at the probe entry latitude show little correlation to the properties of the 5‐μm hot spot waves. Temperatures at the probe entry site derived from remote sensing are warmer than the Atmospheric Structure Instrument (ASI) experiment results near the tropopause, probably because the low‐temperature ASI features are confined to regions smaller than the ∼6000‐km resolution characteristic of the remote sensing.