Department of Earth System Science

Ablation of meteoroidal material in Jupiter's atmosphere may provide substantial quantities of H2O. Subsequent photochemistry can convert H2O and CH4 to CO and H2. The associated source of CO could account for the observations by Beer, Larson, Fink, and Treffers, and Beer and Taylor, and would explain the relatively low rotational temperatures inferred by Beer and Taylor. Meteoritic debris might also provide spectroscopically detectable concentrations of SiO.