Abstract
IN an interesting speculation, Wildt1 suggested that the red and blue colours observed on Jupiter may be due to combinations of the alkali or alkaline earth metals with the ammonia which forms a large part of its atmosphere : the red to concentrated or 'metallic' solutions, the blue to dilute solutions. He left open the question of the source of the metals, but favoured the idea of meteoric dust, because of the spectroscopic detection of sodium in the night sky.
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Ogg, R. A., Leighton, P. A., and Bergstrom, F. W., J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 55, 1754 (1933).
Vaughan, T. H., Vogt, R. R., and Nieuwland, J. A., J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 56, 2120 (1934).
Fernelius, W. C., and Watt, G. W., Chem. Rev., 20, 195 (1937).
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BIRCH, A. Colours of Jupiter. Nature 159, 478 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/159478a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/159478a0
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