[ad_1]
Unlike our fleeting weather characteristics on Earth, Jupiter’s storms last for years, if not centuries. The Great Red Spot of the Gas Giant, a swirling vortex about 10,000 miles wide, has been around for as long as humans have been observing Jupiter through telescopes – since 1665, which means this storm has lasted for at least 356 years. . This ongoing storm in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere consists of purple-colored clouds spinning at nearly 400 miles per hour in a counterclockwise loop. The storm has changed shape and size since it was first observed in detail in the 1800s – and with recent advances in technology, scientists have been able to make more detailed observations of the high winds from this strange storm.
Now, a recent analysis of data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Hubble Space Telescope has revealed something peculiar about the Great Red Spot. Specifically, the average wind speed in the outer limits of the storm (called the high speed ring) has increased by about 8% over the past 11 years.
For context, a typical tropical cyclone on Earth can measure up to 1,240 miles; the storm that includes the large red patch is nearly 9,941 miles in width. Hurricane speeds on Earth are around 190 miles per hour, compared to 400 miles per hour on Jupiter. Unlike land hurricanes, the Great Red Spot appears as a sideways wedding cake thanks to its higher clouds.
“When I saw the results for the first time, I asked: Does this make sense? “No one has ever seen this before,” said Michael Wong of the University of California at Berkeley, who led the analysis published in Geophysical Research Letters. “But it’s something only Hubble can do. Hubble’s longevity and continuous observations make this revelation possible. “
According to the analysis, the measured change in wind speed equates to an increase of about 1.6 mph per Earth year. The data will help scientists better understand what is happening on Jupiter.
“We’re talking about such a small change that if you didn’t have eleven years of Hubble data, we wouldn’t know it happened,” said Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. , who contributed to the research. “With Hubble, we have the precision we need to spot a trend.”
In order to observe the small but significant change in wind speed, Wong took a new approach to better analyze the data from Hubble. Whenever Hubble observed data, it used specific software to track tens to thousands of wind vectors, that is, the direction and speed of the winds.
“It gave me a much more consistent set of speed metrics,” Wong explained. “I also performed a battery of statistical tests to confirm if it was justified to call this an increase in wind speed. It is.”
But what does the increase in speed mean?
“It’s hard to diagnose because Hubble can’t see the bottom of the storm very well. Anything below the cloud tops is invisible in the data,” Wong said. “But it’s an interesting piece of data that can help us understand what fuels the Great Red Spot and how it maintains energy.”
Want more health and science articles in your inbox? Subscribe to The Vulgar Scientist Show’s weekly newsletter.
[ad_2]
Source link