Giant Jupiter Storms

January 25th, 2008

The largest object in our solar system other than the sun is also one of the most powerful weather producing planets as well. Two giant plumes erupted recently on Jupiter, moving faster than any other Jovian feature and leaving global streaks of red cloud particles in their wake.

The chemical makeup and formation of these red aerosols is a bit of a mystery itself. “Nobody knows what its composition is,” said lead study author Agustin Sanchez-Lavega of Universidad del Pais Vasco in Spain, “although in the Jovian atmosphere it is seen in the Great Red Spot and other smaller vortices,” he told SPACE.com.

Using infrared technology astronomers observed the storms that shot ice particles well above the visible clouds.

“The infrared images distinguish the plumes from lower-altitude clouds and show that the plumes are lofting ice particles higher than anyplace else on the planet,” said study researcher Glenn Orton of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

If you were to take your camping gear to Jupiter, well…you’d die, but you would see some of the most dangerous weather conditions on any planet. Although this was a massive storm, Jupiter seems to have no noticeable effects from the phenomena. The researchers also found that despite the turmoil created as the plumes churned through the jet stream, once the plumes waned, the planet’s jet stream remained nearly unchanged. This observation, along with computer models, suggests the jet stream extends more than 62 miles (100 kilometers) below the cloud tops where most sunlight gets absorbed.

“All the evidence points to a deep extent for Jupiter’s jets and suggest that the internal heat power source plays a significant role in generating the jet,” Sanchez-Lavega said.