• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Is Wobbling Like Jelly – And We Don’t Know Why

October 11, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

New observations of the Great Red Spot (GRS), Jupiter’s enormous storm, have revealed that it is less stable than previously thought. Regular observations over the course of 90 days have revealed that its elliptical shape can change dimension, becoming squished in different directions.

The fact that it changes shape is not exactly unexpected. It has certainly diminished in size over the last several years – but the observations between December 2023 and March 2024, have revealed that is also sloshing about, appearing like it’s being pushed and squeezed like a stress ball.

Advertisement

“While we knew its motion varies slightly in its longitude, we didn’t expect to see the size oscillate as well. As far as we know, it’s not been identified before,” lead author Amy Simon, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement. “This is really the first time we’ve had the proper imaging cadence of the GRS. With Hubble’s high resolution we can say that the GRS is definitively squeezing in and out at the same time as it moves faster and slower. That was very unexpected, and at present there are no hydrodynamic explanations.”

Eight Hubble images repeat in a gif, showing Jupiter's Great Red Spot. The GRS appears as a bright red oval in the middle of cream-colored cloud bands. The images trace changes in the GRS's size, shape, brightness, color, and twisting sometimes looking thinner and other times thicker

How the Great Red Spot Changed over 90 days.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC)Joseph DePasquale (STScI) – Animated by IFLScience

There are a lot of changes happening day to day – and a lot is going on. Hubble observations in ultraviolet showed that the spot’s core gets the brightest during the moments when the storm is at its largest. This implies that there is less haze. JWST has also looked at the Great Red Spot recently, but there have not been enough continuous observations to discuss changes in the infrared.   

“As it accelerates and decelerates, the GRS is pushing against the windy jet streams to the north and south of it,” said co-investigator Mike Wong of the University of California at Berkeley. “It’s similar to a sandwich where the slices of bread are forced to bulge out when there’s too much filling in the middle.” 

The GRS has been a feature on Jupiter for at least 150 years, maybe more. Observations from the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program (OPAL) over the last ten years have highlighted how it might be getting smaller. This might not mean it is going to disappear – the winds that squeeze it might just keep it stable and the same size.

Advertisement

“Right now it’s over-filling its latitude band relative to the wind field. Once it shrinks inside that band the winds will really be holding it in place,” said Simon.

The results are being presented at the 56th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences, in Boise, Idaho, and are published in The Planetary Science Journal.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-Manchester test likely to be postponed after India COVID-19 case
  2. EU to attend U.S. trade meeting put in doubt by French anger
  3. Soccer-West Ham win again, Leicester and Napoli falter
  4. Was Jesus A Hallucinogenic Mushroom? One Scholar Certainly Thought So

Source Link: Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Is Wobbling Like Jelly – And We Don't Know Why

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • HUNTR/X Or Giant Squid? Following Alien Claims, We Asked Scientists What They Would Like Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS To Be
  • Flat-Earthers Proved Wrong Using A Security Camera And A Garage
  • Earth Breaches Its First Climate Tipping Point: We’re Moving Into A World Without Coral Reefs
  • Cheese Caves, A Proposal, And Chance: How Scientists Ended Up Watching Fungi Evolve In Real Time
  • Lab-Grown 3D Embryo Models Make Their Own Blood In Regenerative Medicine Breakthrough
  • Humans’ Hidden “Sixth Sense” To Be Mapped Following $14.2 Million Prize – What Is Interoception?
  • Purple Earth Hypothesis: Our Planet Was Not Blue And Green Over 2.4 Billion Years Ago
  • Hippos Hung Around In Europe 80,000 Years Later Than We Thought
  • Officially Gone: Slender-Billed Curlew, Once-Widespread Migratory Bird, Declared Extinct By IUCN
  • Watch: Rare Footage Captures Freaky Faceless Cusk Eels Lurking On The Deep-Sea Floor
  • Watch This Funky Sea Pig Dancing Its Way Through The Deep Sea, Over 2,300 Meters Below The Surface
  • NASA Lets YouTuber Steve Mould Test His “Weird Chain Theory” In Space
  • The Oldest Stalagmite Ever Dated Was Found In Oklahoma Rocks, Dating Back 289 Million Years
  • 2024’s Great American Eclipse Made Some Birds Behave In Surprising Ways, But Not All Were Fooled
  • “Carter Catastrophe”: The Math Equation That Predicts The End Of Humanity
  • Why Is There No Nobel Prize For Mathematics?
  • These Are The Only Animals Known To Incubate Eggs In Their Stomachs And Give “Birth” Out Their Mouths
  • Constipated? This One Fruit Could Help, Says First-Ever Evidence-Led Diet Guidance
  • NGC 2775: This Galaxy Breaks The Rules Of “Galactic Evolution” And Baffles Astronomers
  • Meet The “Four-Eyed” Hirola, The World’s Most Endangered Antelope With Fewer Than 500 Left
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version