We report measurements of the Jupiter brightness spectrum in the 850-m
u m and 1100-mu m atmospheric windows with a spectral resolution of 12
5 MHz, obtained with a Fourier transform spectrometer on the James Cle
rk Maxwell Telescope. Three results were obtained, First, the predicte
d absorption features due to the rotational lines of HCN at 266 and 35
4 GHz were not detected within our error limits of less than 1%. We es
tablish new upper limits for the HCN abundance in the jovian troposphe
re for five assumed abundance distributions and for two assumed NH, ab
undances, The upper limits are 1.7 to 13 times smaller than the abunda
nce value obtained in the only reported detection of HCN in Jupiter pr
ior to the impact of Shoemaker-Levy 9, Second, the continuum brightnes
s temperature spectrum at 850 mu m was determined and is in agreement
with previous measurements, but has large error bars due to uncertaint
ies in the photometric calibration. We estimate the ammonia abundance
in the 1-2 bar region to be 1.7 times solar, but this result is tentat
ive since scattering by NH3 cloud particles and absorption by gaseous
H2S were neglected in our atmospheric model. Finally, the first rotati
onal line of PH3 at 267 GHz was not detected, a result which we demons
trate is consistent with the statistical noise level in these measurem
ents, with current values of the spectroscopic parameters, and with ph
osphine measurements at other wavelengths. (C) 1997 Academic Press.