The only spacecraft ever to directly sample Jupiter’s atmosphere was a single probe dropped into the planet in 1995. It transmitted for just 58 minutes before being destroyed — meaning our only in-situ measurements of Jupiter’s clouds come from one brief descent through one unusually dry patch of an atmosphere larger than Earth itself.

The only spacecraft ever to directly sample Jupiter’s atmosphere was a single probe dropped into the planet in 1995. It transmitted for just 58 minutes before being destroyed — meaning our only in-situ measurements of Jupiter’s clouds come from one brief descent through one unusually dry patch of an atmosphere larger than Earth itself.

Humanity has sampled Jupiter directly along a single falling line. On 7 December 1995, a 337-kilogram probe released by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft hit the giant planet’s upper atmosphere at 47.4 kilometres per second. It survived a deceleration of roughly 228 g, discarded its heat shield, opened a parachute and began sending measurements to the Galileo orbiter overhead. The scientific transmission lasted 57.6 minutes, which is normally rounded to…