The largest storm in our planetary system is moving unexpectedly, scientists say | CNN

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advances and more.

CNN
–

A new view of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot captured by the Hubble Space Telescope shows that the 190-year-old storm is churning like gelatin, and forming like a squashed ball.

The unexpected observations, which Hubble took over 90 days from December to March, show that the Great Red Spot is not as stable as it seems, according to astronomers.

The Great Red Spot, or GRS, is an anticyclone, or large windstorm in Jupiter’s atmosphere that circulates in a central high-pressure area centered on the southern cloud belt of the planet’s center. And the long-term storm is so big — the largest in the solar system — that Earth could fit inside it.

Although storms are generally considered unstable, the Red Spot has been around for nearly two centuries. But the changes seen in the storm seem to be related to its movement and size.

The time lapse of the images shows a “vortex” that “shakes” like gelatin and grows bigger and bigger over time.

The researchers described the observation in a review published in The Planetary Science Journal and presented Wednesday at the 56th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences in Boise, Idaho.

“Although we knew that its movement varies slightly along its length, we did not expect to see the size moving. As far as we know, it hasn’t been identified before,” said study lead author Amy Simon, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement.

“This is the first time we’ve had a good look at the GRS,” Simon said. and slowly. That was very unexpected.”

Astronomers have observed the red light component for at least 150 years, and sometimes, the observations result in surprising results, including the recent revelation that the shape of a storm’s surface can change dimensions’ and look thin or fat at times.

Recently, a separate team of astronomers peered into the heart of the Great Red Spot using the James Webb Space Telescope to capture new data in infrared light. Hubble observations were made in visible and ultraviolet light.

The study, published on September 27 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, revealed that the Great Red Spot is cooling at the center, which causes ammonia and water to condense inside the vortex and form dense clouds. The research team also found the gas phosphine in the storm, which may “play a role in producing the mysterious red colors” that make the Great Red Spot so iconic, said study co-author Leigh Fletcher, a professor of planetary science at a UK university. Leicester, in a statement.

NASA scientists use Hubble’s telescope to monitor storm behavior once a year through the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy, or OPAL, program, which Simon leads. Scientists use this program to look at planets outside our solar system and watch how they change over time.

But the new ideas were taken aside by a program that aims to study the Great Red Spot in detail by watching how the storm has changed over a period of months, rather than a single snapshot of the year.

“To the untrained eye, Jupiter’s streak clouds and the famous red storm may appear stable, stable, and long-lived for many years,” Fletcher said. But a closer inspection reveals a striking contrast, with chaotic weather patterns unlike anything we have here on Earth. “Planetary scientists have been trying for years to see these kinds of processes, anything that can help us understand the physics that underpins this complex system.”

Fletcher was not involved in the new study.

The insights gathered by the program’s observations of the largest storms in our solar system can help scientists understand what the climate might be like on exoplanets orbiting other stars. That knowledge can expand their understanding of weather patterns beyond what we have on Earth.

Simon’s team used high-resolution Hubble images to look in detail at the Great Red Spot’s size, shape and color changes.

“When we look closely, we see many things change every day,” said Simone.

The changes included the brightening of the storm’s core while the Great Red Spot is the largest as it spins.

“As it accelerates and decelerates, the GRS pushes against jet streams with air to the north and south of it,” said study expert Mike Wong, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. in the sentence. It’s like a sandwich where the slices of bread have to come out when it’s too full in the middle.

On Neptune, dark spots can drift away from the planet because there are no strong jet streams holding them, Wong said, while the Great Red Spot is trapped between jet streams in Jupiter’s southern region.

Astronomers have observed that the Red Spot has been shrinking since the OPAL program began a decade ago and predict that it will continue to shrink until it reaches a stable, stable shape. which is longer, which can reduce movement.

“Now it’s overcrowded its latitude band relative to the airspace. “Once it shrinks into that group the spirits will really take hold,” said Simon.

The new Hubble study fills in some pieces of the puzzle about the Red Spot, Fletcher said. Although scientists have known that the western storm has an unexplained 90-day movement, the fast and weak pattern does not appear to be changing even as the storm weakens, he said. .

“By observing the GRS for several months, Hubble has shown that the anticyclone itself changes its shape along with this oscillation,” Fletcher said. “The change in shape is important, as it may affect the way the fog line interacts with other passing storms. In addition to the beautiful Hubble images, this study demonstrates the power of observing atmospheric systems through You need this kind of analysis to see these trends, and obviously the longer you watch, the more chaotic the weather is.”