Jupiter's by far the largest planet in the solar system, it has an influence on everything else
so if we want to understand how do planets form, how do solar systems form, we really have to start with Jupiter.
By studying Jupiter, you're going to get one piece of the puzzle
not necessarily how life formed but maybe how the ingredients that made up life eventually got spread around in the early solar system and got to us.
We care about the light elements because that's what we're made of.
We've got a puzzle about where these volatile elements - these lightweight elements like nitrogen, carbon, noble gasses - where they came from.
To determine how much water is in Jupiter, it is essential to understand how this planet came to form and then how it influenced the formation of all the other planets in the system.
When the earth formed in the absence of Jupiter, it probably would have gathered very little water and organic molecules, which would have been concentrated in the colder, outer part of the solar system.
What Jupiter evidently did as it formed was to scatter cold material that contained water ice and organic materials to the inner solar system
where it could be captured by the earth and the other terrestrial planets.
We learn about the origin of the solar system, we're learning about our own origins, we're learning about how life comes to be, about who we are and what our place is in the universe.
It's about knowledge and about humanity's quest to understand.
For me that's why we need to study Jupiter, and the solar system, and almost everything.