Life on Jupiter?

In considering the possibility of life on earth's planetary neighbors, astronomers have regularly passed up that distant giant Jupiter (1,312 times larger than earth). Jupiter drifts in a suffocating yellow cloud of ammonia and methane, 483 million miles from the sun, and scientists have reached the conclusion that the temperature of its cloud layer is a deathly cold --207DEG F. Its shroud is believed by some to conceal an ice layer 17,000 miles thick. But last week, writing in Radiation Research Magazine, a University of California astronomer raised the possibility that Jupiter's cloud cover may conceal--and even nourish--rude forms of life.

To reach this conclusion. Dr. Carl Sagan, a research fellow in the University of California's Space Sciences Laboratory, simulated Jupiter's known atmosphere in the lab, showering his Jovian model with ultraviolet rays, just as Jupiter and all the planets are bathed by the sun.

The ultraviolet infiltrating the atmosphere produces simple organic molecules. At the same time, the sun's rays penetrate to the planet's surface, inducing infra-red radiation. The cloud cover traps this heat, forming the oceans of water or ammonia into which the falling molecules (formed at the impressive rate of ten pounds per square mile per year) dissolve. This process, says Sagan, "would create the conditions necessary for complex pre-biological organic reactions." By his reckoning, Jupiter's rind may not be icy at all, and its surface temperature (70DEG F.) may be balmy enough to support the same evolutionary process that on earth led from molecules to man.

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