Galileo Probe Confirms "Strange" Xenon In Jupiter

Mass spectrometers on the Galileo probe of Jupiter found "strange" xenon, enriched in Xe-136 from the r-process, as predicted in 1983 if Jupiter's abundant light elements came from outer layers of the supernova that formed the solar system [See: "Solar abundance of the elements", Meteoritics 18 (1983) p. 220]. These data became available on 7 January 1998 when Dan Goldin ordered the data released in response to a request from Dr. Manuel at the AAS meeting in Washington, DC [C-SPAN tape 98-01-07-22-1, Purdue U. Public Affairs Video Archives, # 98526].

Two other predictions of the 1983 paper ["Solar abundance of the elements", Meteoritics 18 (1983) p. 220] had been verified earlier:

• Isotopes of Mg are sorted by mass in the Sun and the lighter isotopes are selectively moved to the solar surface:
  http://web.umr.edu/~om/abstracts/abstractACS98dr.html
• All four neutrino detectors have confirmed a deficit of solar neutrinos:
  http://dept.physics.upenn.edu/neutrino/solar.html