Word: streett
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Writing in the planetary-science journal Icarus, Scientists William Streett, Harry Ringermacher and George Veronis contend that the Red Spot is caused by a huge solid chunk of hydrogen afloat in a sea of gases in Jupiter's atmosphere. How could a solid float in gases? The authors explain that the phenomenon becomes possible when certain mixtures of gases are subjected to high enough pressures. As one of the gases in the mix becomes liquefied and then begins to solidify under increasing pressure, a peculiar reversal takes place: the solidifying mass-like water turning into ice-becomes lighter...
Indirect Evidence. To substantiate his hunch that this is what happens on Jupiter, Lieut. Colonel Streett (a mechanical-engineer-turned-physicist who heads West Point's new science research laboratory) calculated the effects of high pressures on hydrogen and helium, the basic gases in the Jovian atmosphere. He deduced that if such a combination were subjected to several hundred thousand times earthly atmospheric pressure (14.7 Ibs. per sq. in. at sea level), the hydrogen would begin to solidify first, its density becoming less than that of the remaining gaseous mixture of hydrogen and helium. Physicist Ringermacher, then a Private...