Tag: Jupiter

Click for full resolution image.

The image on the right, reduced to post here, was created by Citizen scientist Kevin Gill from recent Juno images taken of Jupiter, and shows in detail some of the many storms that fill Jupiter’s many bands of color.

We do not have a scale, but my guess is that these storms are probably about the size of the Earth, which means these storms are bigger than any hurricane you can imagine. If you click on the image to look at the full resolution photograph, you can see there are tiny white clouds clumped in the middle of the picture’s three biggest storms. Those clumps are probably also bigger than any single clouds you could find anywhere on Earth.

As I wrote in a post in April 2017 about a similar Juno image:

What should fill us with even more awe is that this only covers a very thin slice of the top of Jupiter’s deep atmosphere. The planet itself is about 89,000 miles in diameter, more than ten times larger than Earth. The depth of its atmosphere is not really known, but it must be deeper than several Earths, piled on top of each other. In that depth there must be many atmospheric layers, each thicker and denser than the one above, and each with its own weather systems and complexities.

It will take centuries of research, including the development of new engineering capable of accessing this place, to even begin to map out its meteorology. And this is only one gas giant, of what we now know must be millions and millions throughout the galaxy.

If we have the nerve and daring, the human race has the opportunity to go out there and never be bored. There will always be something unknown to discover.

All that still applies. We have only just begun our journey exploring the universe.

My headline above focuses on the real story here, that Juno has found that Jupiter’s solid core is more fuzzy and extended.

Unfortunately, the press release instead focuses on one theory, based on computer models, that might explain this discovery.

The research team ran thousands of computer simulations and found that a fast-growing Jupiter can have perturbed the orbits of nearby “planetary embryos,” protoplanets that were in the early stages of planet formation.

Liu said the calculations included estimates of the probability of collisions under different scenarios and distribution of impact angles. In all cases, Liu and colleagues found there was at least a 40% chance that Jupiter would swallow a planetary embryo within its first few million years. In addition, Jupiter mass-produced “strong gravitational focusing” that made head-on collisions more common than grazing ones.

Isella said the collision scenario became even more compelling after Liu ran 3D computer models that showed how a collision would affect Jupiter’s core. “Because it’s dense, and it comes in with a lot of energy, the impactor would be like a bullet that goes through the atmosphere and hits the core head-on,” Isella said. “Before impact, you have a very dense core, surrounded by atmosphere. The head-on impact spreads things out, diluting the core.”

This theory is all well and good, but we mustn’t take it too seriously. It relies entirely on computer models, and carries with it enormous assumptions about the early solar system that are as yet unproven.

That Jupiter’s core however is fuzzy and extended however is quite fascinating, highlighting once again how little we know about the universe.

Cool image time! Using images from Juno, a citizen scientist going under the nom de plume YobiRoby has created the height map image to the right, showing three-dimensionality of the cloud surface of Jupiter.

Though they provide no details to go with this image, it appears it is centered on Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, the larger of the two big storms that are visible. While the smaller storm appears raised like a mound above the surrounding cloudtops, the Great Red Spot instead appears to be a mound that is depressed below the cloudtops.

The image on the right, cropped to post here, was taken by Juno on February 12, 2019 as the spacecraft made its 17th close approach of Jupiter. The Juno science team today has highlighted this version, processed by citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran to enhance the details therein. They note how the white clouds can clear be seen sitting above the colored clouds below.

I cropped it to show the center of the storm. The full image is equally spectacular, as it shows the full storm. Unfortunately, there is no scale, but I suspect you could probably fit the entire Earth several times across the diameter of the storm.

Using several instruments, the Juno science team has successfully photographed an active volcano plume in Io’s polar regions. Two instruments measured the plume’s heat and radiation. Juno’s cameras meanwhile took the color image on the right. The bright spot on Io’s night side matches the location of the heat and radiation signatures from the other instruments.

JunoCam acquired the first images on Dec. 21 at 12:00, 12:15 and 12:20 coordinated universal time (UTC) before Io entered Jupiter’s shadow. The Images show the moon half-illuminated with a bright spot seen just beyond the terminator, the day-night boundary. “The ground is already in shadow, but the height of the plume allows it to reflect sunlight, much like the way mountaintops or clouds on the Earth continue to be lit after the sun has set,” explained Candice Hansen-Koharcheck, the JunoCam lead from the Planetary Science Institute.

This image is not the first time a spacecraft has caught an active volcanic plume on Io. In fact, practically the very first good images of Io during the Voyager 1 fly-by did this, confirming then that volcanoes are active on the Jupiter moon.

What this image further confirms however is how active Io really is. Volcanoes erupt there so continuously that it apparently isn’t that hard to catch one as it happens.

Cool movie time! Citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt has created a time lapse movie using the images taken by Juno during its sixteenth close fly-by of Jupiter on October 29, 2018.

The movie is embedded below the fold. Quite spectacular. The colors are enhanced to bring out the details, and begins looking down at Jupiter’s north hemisphere at night.
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Cool image time! The photograph on the right, reduced to post here, was created by citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran from the raw images taken by Juno during the spacecraft’s 16th close fly-by of Jupiter on October 29, 2018. If you click on it you can see the full resolution image.

At the time, Juno was about 4,400 miles (7,000 kilometers) from the planet’s cloud tops, at a latitude of approximately 40 degrees north.

What attracts me to this image is its dimensionality. First, it looks at Jupiter from an oblique angle. Second, the shadows of the upper clouds can clearly be seen being cast on the lower clouds. Third, if you look at the full resolution image you can even see this effect in the middle of the big white storm in the image’s top left.

What frustrates me about this image is that Juno is not in an orbit around Jupiter allowing it to make extended movies of the evolution of these cloud features. Gaining even a limited understanding the meteorology of this gas giant will simply not be possible until we can do this, and that will require many satellites orbiting the planet.

Cool image time! The image on the right, cropped to post here, shows the white center of one of the smaller giant storms on Jupiter, taken by Juno. The image was processed by citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran. If you click on the image you can see the entire picture, which has a host of spectacular details surrounding the white spot.

Unfortunately, they do not provide a scale. Based on past experience, I would guess that this tiny storm probably exceeds the size of the Earth. What makes the image so impressive however are the white cloudtops visible as they swirl around the storm’s center. Sunlight shadows clearly shows that these thunderheads rise above rest of the storm.

The full image shows even more fascinating details. It is worthwhile studying, though one can certainly get lost in that vast and turbulent Jupiter atmosphere.