Phase Equilibria in Planetary Atmospheres

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Abstract
Experimental phase diagrams for binary mixtures, extrapolated to very high pressures, suggest that layered structures may exist deep in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, as a result of solid-fluid and fluid-fluid phase separations in the primary H2-He mixture. Consideration of these phase separations, together with the barotropic phenomenon, a reversal in the relative densities of two co-existing phases with changing pressure, leads to a model in which discontinuous changes in fluid density and composition may occur, and in which a hydrogen-rich solid phase is suspended in dynamic and thermodynamic equilibrium with a surrounding fluid layer slightly enriched in He. This picture may be relevant to the floating raft concept of Jupiter's Great Red Spot.

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