News: 0175228323

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Jupiter's Great Red Spot Is Shapeshifting in Ways 'Never Identified Before'

(Thursday October 10, 2024 @05:20PM (msmash) from the stranger-things dept.)


An anonymous reader writes:

> A massive storm has been raging on Jupiter for centuries, and, for the most part, has appeared very serious. A new series of detailed images, however, revealed that the famous red cyclone [1]can get a little squiggly , bulging into different shapes and sizes over a short period of time.

>

> Astronomers used the Hubble space telescope to look at Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS) from December 2023 to March 2024, and they observed the massive storm changing dimensions over the 90-day period. The reason behind this unexpected shapeshifting is unknown, but it revealed that the famous red storm is not as stable as it seemed. The results of the Hubble observations are detailed in [2]a study published Wednesday in The Planetary Science Journal.

>

> Using Hubble's observations, the team of astronomers behind the new study measured the Great Red Spot's size, shape, brightness, color, and vorticity over one full oscillation cycle. The combined images act like a time-lapse of the storm's changing behavior, revealing its famous red eye varying in size, while its core gets brighter when the Great Red Spot is at its largest during the 90-day cycle.



[1] https://gizmodo.com/jupiters-great-red-spot-is-shapeshifting-in-ways-never-identified-before-2000510327

[2] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ad71d1



Serious (Score:2)

by JBMcB ( 73720 )

> A massive storm has been raging on Jupiter for centuries, and, for the most part, has appeared very serious.

I'm sorry, but what does that mean? It isn't a casual storm? I mean the eye is larger than Earth...

Re: (Score:2)

by Forty Two Tenfold ( 1134125 )

Due to D/1993 F2.

Re: (Score:2)

by i kan reed ( 749298 )

> I mean the eye is larger than Earth...

Er... no. The whole storm is about [1]1.3 earths [wikipedia.org], and the eye is not a well defined feature the way it is with hurricanes on earth. You could approximate the darker swirl in the center at about a quarter earth.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Red_Spot#Mechanical_dynamics

Re: (Score:3)

by Rei ( 128717 )

It's also not necessarily correct. There's growing doubt that it's the same storm that was observed in the 1600s and early 1700s. We can say it's been around for at least ~150 years, and probably ~200, though.

Re: (Score:2)

by Rei ( 128717 )

(So I guess 200 would qualify as "centuries", but it's the bare minimum of that description)

Re: (Score:2)

by RoccamOccam ( 953524 )

I'm guessing that the intended word was "stable", not "serious".

It's just pinggig Europa (Score:3)

by ls671 ( 1122017 )

It's just pinging Europa, they've warned us about leaving Europa alone:

[1]https://www.goodreads.com/quot... [goodreads.com]

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/992255-all-these-worlds-are-yours-except-europa-attempt-no-landing

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon)

Re: (Score:1)

by cayenne8 ( 626475 )

> "Climate Change" now we'll get taxed for this now...........

I made a similar joke....good ones.

But I'm curious, where do you live where you are actually taxed on climate change?

What and how much do they tax you on...?

Re: (Score:2)

by cayenne8 ( 626475 )

> New York.....They back door us with forced enrollment in "Climate friendly programs"

I hadn't heard about this before, interesting.

I wonder if this is something in other states too?

Nothing here where I live (New Orleans)....hell, I've never lived in a state where they even check your tailpipe emissions....

Jupiter is not sending its best (Score:3)

by Tablizer ( 95088 )

"That big ugly eye keeps looking us very disrespectfully. As dictator, I mean President, I will nuke it away blind and all the planets will finally respect Earth. Even Uranus laughs at us under Kamjoe, so sad.

And I'll make Jupiter build us rings like Saturday's rings and pay for it! Earth deserves big beautiful rings, not like those loser planets with smelly air, so smelly, everyone says so. The best planet should have the best rings! We and we alone run the Solar Thing,

Galileo was wrong, his dad never paid his Hotel bills and his mom ate the lobby plants, we saw them, all losers. #MEGA!"

Climate change (Score:1)

by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

This is clear and evident climate change. Whatever we're doing here on earth, we clearly need to stop - it's impacting our entire solar system!

If people drank ink instead of Schlitz, they'd be better off.
-- Edward E. Hippensteel

[What brand of ink? Ed.]