About this expedition
What would it be like to fall into Jupiter?
Jupiter has no surface to stand on, so this expedition is an atmospheric descent. You ride an imagined probe down through the clouds of the largest planet — past white ammonia cirrus and the rim of a giant storm, into a dark layer lit by lightning — with five discoveries at five different depths, all in your browser.
Jupiter is made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Its familiar stripes are three cloud decks — ammonia ice on top, ammonium hydrosulfide below and water clouds deeper still — stretched into bands by powerful winds and a day that lasts under ten hours. In 1995 NASA’s Galileo probe parachuted into these clouds and sent data for about an hour before heat and pressure silenced it.
Quick facts
- Gravity at the cloud tops
- 24.79 m/s² — about 2.5 times Earth’s
- Solid surface
- None — the atmosphere just gets denser
- Atmosphere
- About 90% hydrogen and 10% helium (by molecules)
- Length of a day
- About 9 hours 56 minutes
- Great Red Spot
- A storm wider than Earth, watched since at least the 1830s
- Probes
- Galileo entry probe (1995); Juno in orbit since 2016
Five discoveries to find
- The veil of ammonia — the highest of Jupiter’s three cloud layers.
- A frozen crystal — an ammonia ice grain in the specimen viewer.
- The storm that outlives nations — the rim of a hurricane wider than Earth.
- Flash in the deep — lightning inside the water-driven storm layer.
- Where signals fade — the depth where heat and pressure end a probe’s mission.
How to explore
Press Begin descent. The probe sinks on its own; hold Space to fire the ascent thruster and use W A S D or the arrow keys to drift sideways. Drag to look around; on phones and tablets a touch pad appears. Press G to compare the local gravity with Earth’s, P for photo mode, and E to record a discovery in your journal — progress is saved on your own device.
Science and artistic reconstruction
The cloud layers, storm and lightning are based on what Galileo, Juno and telescopes have revealed; a real NASA 3D model of the Galileo orbiter hangs overhead at the start. The cloud shapes, depths and storm placement are artistic reconstructions, not survey data.
Keep exploring
关于本次探索
坠入木星会是什么感觉？
木星没有可以站立的表面，所以这次探索是一场大气层下降。你将乘坐一个虚构的探测器穿过这颗最大行星的云层——经过白色的氨冰卷云和一场巨型风暴的边缘，进入被闪电照亮的深层——五个发现分布在五个不同的深度，全部在浏览器中完成。
木星主要由氢和氦组成，没有固体表面，大气越往下越稠密、越炽热。它的条纹是被快速自转拉伸的云带，一天不到 10 小时，是太阳系中最短的自转周期。1995 年，美国宇航局的伽利略号探测器曾降落伞式进入这些云层，在热量和压力使其失效前传回了约一小时的数据。
快速数据
- 云顶引力
- 24.79 m/s²，约为地球的 2.5 倍
- 固体表面
- 无——大气只是越往下越稠密
- 大气
- 按分子数约 90% 氢、10% 氦
- 自转周期
- 约 9 小时 56 分钟
- 大红斑
- 比地球还宽的风暴，至少自 19 世纪起就被观测到
- 探测器
- 伽利略号下降探测器（1995）；朱诺号 2016 年起在轨
五个发现
- 氨的薄纱 — 木星三层云中最高的一层。
- 一颗冻结的晶体 — 标本查看器中的氨冰颗粒。
- 比国家更长寿的风暴 — 比地球还宽的飓风边缘。
- 深处的闪光 — 由水驱动的风暴层中的闪电。
- 信号消失之处 — 热量与压力结束探测器任务的深度。
如何探索
点击“开始下降”。探测器会自行下沉；按住空格键启动上升推进器，用 W A S D 或方向键横向漂移，Shift 加速。拖动鼠标环顾四周。
科学与艺术重建
云层结构、风暴和闪电基于伽利略号、朱诺号及望远镜的观测；开始时头顶会出现一个真实的 NASA 伽利略轨道器三维模型。云层形状、深度与风暴位置是艺术重建，并非测量数据。