The unexpected observations, which Hubble took over 90 days from December to March, showed thatGreat red spot It’s not as stable as it seems, according to astronomers.
And the great red spot on Jupiteror GRS, is an anticyclone, or large circulation of winds in Jupiter’s atmosphere that orbits around a central area of high pressure along a belt of clouds in the planet’s mid-southern latitudes.
The storm is long-lived, very large in size, and is the largest in Solar systemso much so that the Earth could expand inside it.
Although considered Storms Generally unstable, the Great Red Spot has persisted for about two centuries. But the changes observed in the storm appear to be related to its movement and size.
A time-lapse of the images shows the vortex “vibrating” like gelatin, expanding and contracting over time.
The researchers described the observation in an analysis published in the Journal of Planetary Science and presented Wednesday at the 56th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Planetary Science Section in Boise, Idaho.
said Amy Simon, lead author of the study and a planetary scientist at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center NASA in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement: “While we knew that its motion varied slightly in longitude, we did not expect to see its magnitude fluctuate as well. As far as we know, it had never been identified before.”
“This is really the first time we’ve gotten the right imaging rhythm for the Great Red Spot… with the high resolution of it,” Simone addedHubble telescopewe can say that the Great Red Spot is categorically pressing in and out at the same time as it is moving faster and slower. “It was completely unexpected.”
The study, published September 27 in the Journal of Geophysical Research, revealed that the Great Red Spot is cold at the center, causing ammonia and water to condense inside the vortex and form dense clouds.
Fletcher, the professor, told me Planetary science At Britain’s University of Leicester, in a statement, the research team also discovered phosphine gas inside the storm, which may play “a role in generating those mysterious red colors” that make the Great Red Spot so iconic.
NASA scientists use Hubble’s sharp eye to track storm behavior once a year.
But the new observations were made separately by a program dedicated to studying the Great Red Spot in more detail by watching how the storm changed over the course of months, rather than a single annual snapshot.
“To the untrained eye, Jupiter’s striped clouds and the famous red storm may appear constant, stable and long-lived over many years,” Fletcher said. “But closer inspection shows incredible fluctuations, with chaotic weather patterns as complex as anything we have here on Earth.” the earth. “Planetary scientists have been struggling for years to see patterns in this variability, anything that might give us the ability to understand the physics that underpins this complex system.”
Insights gathered through the program’s observations of the largest storms in our solar system could help scientists understand what the weather might be like Exoplanets Which revolve around other stars. This knowledge can expand their understanding of atmospheric processes beyond those we experience on the ground.
Simon’s team used high-resolution Hubble images to get a detailed look at the size, shape and color of the Great Red Spot.
“When we look closely, we see that a lot of things change from day to day,” Simone said.
The changes included the brightness of the storm’s core when the Great Red Spot is at its largest as it oscillates.
Fletcher, who was not involved in the study, said the new Hubble study fills in more pieces of the puzzle about the Great Red Spot. While scientists know the storm’s westward drift has an unexplained 90-day oscillation, the pattern of acceleration and deceleration does not appear to be changing despite the storm’s contraction, he said.
He added, “By observing the Great Red Spot over the course of a few months, Hubble showed that the anticyclone itself changes shape along with this oscillation… Changing shape is important, because it may affect how the edge of the vortex interacts with other passing storms.” In addition to images “This amazing study shows the power of observing atmospheric systems over long periods of time. You need this kind of observation to spot these patterns, and obviously the longer you watch, the more structure you see in the chaotic weather.”
