Jupiter's Great Red Spot - Dead Soon

[Alberon]

Haven't done a space post for too long.

This one is about Jupiter's most famous feature, the Great Red Spot. It's an enormous centuries old anti-cyclone on the face of the Solar System's largest planet. Storms can last a very long time on planets like Jupiter because there is no solid surface to suck energy out of them.

But nothing lasts forever and the GRS might only have only twenty years left to it.

A spot was first seen on the surface of Jupiter in 1665 and this was infrequently observed until 1713. A spot was seen again in 1830 and regularly observed from the late 19th century onwards, but its impossible to tell if it is the same spot seen in the 17th century.



That's Jupiter in 1974 when Pioneer 10 went past.

This is Jupiter at the end of May this year.

At the time of the Voyager spacecrafts' Jupiter flybys in 1979, the storm was three Earths wide, stretching 40,000 km end to end. Now its size is 16,000 km, just a bit wider than Earth.

The Great Red Spot is an anticyclone: it moves in the direction opposite to the planet's rotation. Two jet-stream bands run above and below the spot. The darker one, known as the south equatorial belt (SEB), runs above the storm opposite to the planet's rotation. The lighter jet-stream runs below the storm in the direction of the planet's rotation. Together, these two opposing streams have contained the Great Red Spot in a fixed latitude for centuries.

Throughout 2019, high-velocity vortices in Jupiter's SEB were seen interacting with the Great Red Spot, pulling out a stream of dark material from it in the process. Amateur astronomers recorded one such interaction in May that lasted a full week, the resulting flaked stream stretching more than 10,000 km from the west end of the storm. That's more than half the size of the storm itself. The flaked stream appeared to join the SEB and dissipate inside it.

https://thewire.in/the-sciences/jupiter-nasa-juno-great-red-spot

One of the most iconic sights in the Solar System might be gone in our lifetimes. But it will not be the end of red spots. In recent years a new storm has grown called Oval BA. As it has strengthened it too has turned red and it is still growing.



No one knows exactly why the spots turn red. According to Wikipedia-

According to a 2008 study by Dr. Santiago Pérez-Hoyos of the University of the Basque Country, the most likely mechanism is "an upward and inward diffusion of either a colored compound or a coating vapor that may interact later with high energy solar photons at the upper levels of Oval BA." Some believe that small storms (and their corresponding white spots) on Jupiter turn red when the winds become powerful enough to draw certain gases from deeper within the atmosphere which change color when those gases are exposed to sunlight.

The probe Juno is in orbit of Jupiter and it'll be in position to have another look at the Great Red Spot next month.

[BlodwynPig]

*Mike Gapes gets the chills*

[Sebastian Cobb]

Is this a race between this and earth being uninhabitable?

[Captain Z]

No one knows exactly why the spots turn red.

Perhaps Jupiter has been squeezing them.

[mothman]

Great post. I thought I'd share this image (you'll have to zoom in) my daughter took two weeks ago in Rome. Jupiter was visible away to the east just above the Castel Sant' Angelo, and she was able to get this shot of the four Galilean moons through the telescope on our hotel's roof.

Just after this, the ISS went straight over our heads. Which was nice.

[Johnny Yesno]

Has it tried just pulling itself together?

[Uncle TechTip]

I reckon it's exhaust fumes from industrial processes by a secret civilisation of gas bags living at the bottom of the clouds. Looks like they're building a new factory.

[Ferris]

rip phil jupitus 354 is no age sleep tight big man xxx

[steve98]

Adios Spotty

[Spoon of Ploff]

I bamlem Shoemaker–Levy

[BlodwynPig]

Great post. I thought I'd share this image (you'll have to zoom in) my daughter took two weeks ago in Rome. Jupiter was visible away to the east just above the Castel Sant' Angelo, and she was able to get this shot of the four Galilean moons through the telescope on our hotel's roof.

Just after this, the ISS went straight over our heads. Which was nice.

Wow!

[kittens]

look boys i'm pretty backward when it comes to planets. when they say 'gas giant', do they mean the entire planet is just a big ball of gas? no solid matter there at all? or it is solid but also there's a particularly high amount of 'gas' running circles around this big solid? what is jupiter?

[Norton Canes]

Galactic Council summon ambassador from planet Zovirax

[Norton Canes]

_{© 2007 Russell T. Davies}

[Alberon]

look boys i'm pretty backward when it comes to planets. when they say 'gas giant', do they mean the entire planet is just a big ball of gas? no solid matter there at all? or it is solid but also there's a particularly high amount of 'gas' running circles around this big solid? what is jupiter?

It probably does have a solid core but when it comes to a surface under the atmosphere the answer is a lot more vague.



There's the atmosphere, which while it looks small here, is vast. Then the pressure grows so great that the hydrogen exists as a liquid. Deeper still and the pressure increases turns the hydrogen into another state, that of a metallic liquid. Beyond all that there could be a central core of rock and ice, but no one really knows. It's possible for Jupiter to have formed without a core, or maybe it has eroded away over the billions of years under the immense temperatures and pressures leaving just the liquid metallic hydrogen.

Arthur C. Clarke guessed in his novel, 2010, that at the core of Jupiter is a massive diamond the size of the Earth. There probably isn't, but who knows?

[Blumf]

look boys i'm pretty backward when it comes to planets. when they say 'gas giant', do they mean the entire planet is just a big ball of gas? no solid matter there at all? or it is solid but also there's a particularly high amount of 'gas' running circles around this big solid? what is jupiter?

It's a big ball of gas, just gets thicker the deeper down you go. There might be a rocky core or something, but scientists aren't sure, because they're stupid and lazy.

[kalowski]

I bamlem Shoemaker–Levy

Bamlem all you like.

[kittens]

hm. well then, with this new information in mind i'd like to call for jupiter to be stripped of its status as largest planet. i can only apologise to jupiter but it's pretty brazenly been getting away with this for too long. we don't include the gas above a planet in the measurements- that would be absurd. like saying you've got a ten inch cock but the last six inches are just the air at the end of it. patently ridiculous. really the biggest planet should be earth, seeing as that's the only one of these dumb rocks that's got anything going for it.

[mothman]

I bamlem Shoemaker–Levy

Yet more antisemitism. This doesn't look good for Corbyn.

[Alberon]

hm. well then, with this new information in mind i'd like to call for jupiter to be stripped of its status as largest planet. i can only apologise to jupiter but it's pretty brazenly been getting away with this for too long. we don't include the gas above a planet in the measurements- that would be absurd. like saying you've got a ten inch cock but the last six inches are just the air at the end of it. patently ridiculous. really the biggest planet should be earth, seeing as that's the only one of these dumb rocks that's got anything going for it.

This page has the contact details of the International Astronomical Union. They're the group that demoted Pluto from planet to dwarf planet just over a decade ago, so I'm sure they'll be very receptive to your arguments.

https://www.iau.org/administration/secretariat/

Let me know what they say.

[Captain Z]

There's the atmosphere, which while it looks small here, is vast. Then the pressure grows so great that the hydrogen exists as a liquid. Deeper still and the pressure increases turns the hydrogen into another state, that of a metallic liquid. Beyond all that there could be a central core of rock and ice, but no one really knows. It's possible for Jupiter to have formed without a core, or maybe it has eroded away over the billions of years under the immense temperatures and pressures leaving just the liquid metallic hydrogen.

Arthur C. Clarke guessed in his novel, 2010, that at the core of Jupiter is a massive diamond the size of the Earth. There probably isn't, but who knows?

Surely NASA have got a big long pole they could just poke in?

[Attila]

Great post. I thought I'd share this image (you'll have to zoom in) my daughter took two weeks ago in Rome. Jupiter was visible away to the east just above the Castel Sant' Angelo, and she was able to get this shot of the four Galilean moons through the telescope on our hotel's roof.

Just after this, the ISS went straight over our heads. Which was nice.

This is a fabulous photo; thanks for sharing! :)

[Johnny Yesno]

Great post. I thought I'd share this image (you'll have to zoom in) my daughter took two weeks ago in Rome. Jupiter was visible away to the east just above the Castel Sant' Angelo, and she was able to get this shot of the four Galilean moons through the telescope on our hotel's roof.

Just after this, the ISS went straight over our heads. Which was nice.

Nice. Here's some I took using just my Panasonic Lumix camera (click to enlarge):

[mothman]

Wow! Those are really good. I have a proper telescope of my own, with an electronic moving thing I've never quite figured out. One day, maybe; I also have an attachment to link the viewfinder up to a computer, which my wife got me years ago and struggled to make work with Windows 8, its interface was so old; I don't know how far I'd get using a MacBook...

This website is good for identifying which of the moons is which at any given time: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/wp-content/observing-tools/jupiter_moons/jupiter.html

[alan nagsworth]

That's Jupiter in 1974 when Pioneer 10 went past.

"Jupiter mate just off down the shop for cigs do you want owt picking up for that spot like, looks a bit sore mate" - Pioneer 10, 1974

[BlodwynPig]

Here's my view from my mum's kitchen