Jupiter’s changing and unchanging Great Red Spot
Click for full figure.
In a paper published in March in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, scientists (using images from amateurs, the Hubble Space Telescope, and Juno, scientists) have mapped out the interactions between Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, the longest known storm on the gas giant, and the smaller storms that interact with it as they zip past.
The series of images to the right come from figure 5 of their paper, showing the Spot over a period of three days. The Spot in these images is about 9,000 miles across, less than half the size it had been back in the late 1800s.
The black arrows mark the shifting location and shape of one smaller vortice as it flowed past the Spot from east to west along its northern perimeter, ripping off portions of the Spot as it passed. From the paper’s absract:
During its history, the [Great Red Spot] has shrunk to half its size since 1879, and encountered many smaller anticyclones and other dynamical features that interacted in a complex way. In 2018–2020, while having a historically small size, its structure and even its survival appeared to be threatened when a series of anticyclones moving in from the east tore off large fragments of the red area and distorted its shape. In this work, we report observations of the dynamics of these interactions and show that as a result the [Spot] increased its internal rotation velocity, maintaining its vorticity but decreasing its visible area, and suffering a transient change in its otherwise steady 90‐day oscillation in longitude.
…From the analysis of the reflectivity of the [Spot] and flakes and model simulations of the dynamics of the interactions we find that these events are likely to have been superficial, not affecting the full depth of the [Spot]. The interactions are not necessarily destructive but can transfer energy to the [Spot], maintaining it in a steady state and guaranteeing its long lifetime.
In other words, the changes seen only involved the Spot’s cloud tops, even if those tops were many miles thick. The storm itself is much deeper, with its base embedded strongly inside Jupiter and largely unaffected by these passing smaller storms.
Why the Spot exists and remains so long-lived remains an unsolved mystery.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
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4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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Click for full figure.
In a paper published in March in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, scientists (using images from amateurs, the Hubble Space Telescope, and Juno, scientists) have mapped out the interactions between Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, the longest known storm on the gas giant, and the smaller storms that interact with it as they zip past.
The series of images to the right come from figure 5 of their paper, showing the Spot over a period of three days. The Spot in these images is about 9,000 miles across, less than half the size it had been back in the late 1800s.
The black arrows mark the shifting location and shape of one smaller vortice as it flowed past the Spot from east to west along its northern perimeter, ripping off portions of the Spot as it passed. From the paper’s absract:
During its history, the [Great Red Spot] has shrunk to half its size since 1879, and encountered many smaller anticyclones and other dynamical features that interacted in a complex way. In 2018–2020, while having a historically small size, its structure and even its survival appeared to be threatened when a series of anticyclones moving in from the east tore off large fragments of the red area and distorted its shape. In this work, we report observations of the dynamics of these interactions and show that as a result the [Spot] increased its internal rotation velocity, maintaining its vorticity but decreasing its visible area, and suffering a transient change in its otherwise steady 90‐day oscillation in longitude.
…From the analysis of the reflectivity of the [Spot] and flakes and model simulations of the dynamics of the interactions we find that these events are likely to have been superficial, not affecting the full depth of the [Spot]. The interactions are not necessarily destructive but can transfer energy to the [Spot], maintaining it in a steady state and guaranteeing its long lifetime.
In other words, the changes seen only involved the Spot’s cloud tops, even if those tops were many miles thick. The storm itself is much deeper, with its base embedded strongly inside Jupiter and largely unaffected by these passing smaller storms.
Why the Spot exists and remains so long-lived remains an unsolved mystery.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
“Hairy Ball” theorum-no, that’s a real thing.
I still believe the red spot is Jupiters second magnetic pole, being near the equator, it is probably the reason Io experiences so much heating from intense magnetic flux.
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/pfigshare-u-files/12423890/Mooreetal2018.mp4
From 2018;
https://behindtheblack.com/?s=+Jupiter%27s+magnetic+field+
Its big massive Hurricane that would make our most poweful Hurricanes look like Spring Breeze