CLOUD LAYERS

Jupiter has many bands of clouds going horizontally across its surface. The light parts are zones and the darker ones are belts. The zones and belts often interact with each other. This causes huge storms. Wind speeds of 360 km/h are common on Jupiter. The strongest tropical storms on Earth are about 100 km/h.

Most of the clouds on Jupiter are made of Ammonia. There may also be clouds of water vapour like clouds on Earth. Spacecrafts such as Voyager 1 have seen lightning on the surface of the planet. Scientists think it was water vapour because lightning needs water vapour. These lightning bolts have been measured as up 1,000 times as powerful as those on Earth. The brown and orange colours are caused when sunlight passes through or refracts with the many gases in the atmosphere.