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posted by martyb on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:38AM   Printer-friendly
from the Lady-Macbeth-would-be-pleased dept.

The most famous atmospheric features of both Jupiter and Neptune may be gone soon:

When we think of storms on the other planets in our Solar System, we automatically think of Jupiter. Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a fixture in our Solar System, and has lasted 200 years or more. But the storms on Neptune are different: they're transient.

[...] "It looks like we're capturing the demise of this dark vortex, and it's different from what well-known studies led us to expect," said Michael H. Wong of the University of California at Berkeley, referring to work by Ray LeBeau (now at St. Louis University) and Tim Dowling's team at the University of Louisville. "Their dynamical simulations said that anticyclones under Neptune's wind shear would probably drift toward the equator. We thought that once the vortex got too close to the equator, it would break up and perhaps create a spectacular outburst of cloud activity."

Rather than going out in some kind of notable burst of activity, this storm is just fading away. And it's also not drifting toward the equator as expected, but is making its way toward the south pole. Again, the inevitable comparison is with Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS). The GRS is held in place by the prominent storm bands in Jupiter's atmosphere. And those bands move in alternating directions, constraining the movement of the GRS. Neptune doesn't have those bands, so it's thought that storms on Neptune would tend to drift to the equator, rather than toward the south pole.

Neptune's Great Dark Spot may not have the support of atmospheric storm bands, but Jupiter's Great Red Spot is also on the decline:

A ferocious storm has battered Jupiter for at least 188 years. From Earth, it is observed as red swirling clouds racing counter-clockwise in what is known as the planet's "Great Red Spot." But after shrinking for centuries, it may now be on the brink of disappearing for good.

"In truth, the GRS [Great Red Spot] has been shrinking for a long time," lead Juno mission team member and planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Glenn Orton told Business Insider in an email. "The GRS will in a decade or two become the GRC (Great Red Circle). Maybe sometime after that the GRM"—the Great Red Memory.


Original Submission

Related Stories

NASA's Juno Mission to Jupiter Extended for 3 Years 5 comments

NASA has extended the Juno mission for 3 more years. It was previously scheduled to deorbit and collide with Jupiter in July 2018. JunoCam is expected to fail before the end of the mission due to radiation damage:

NASA has officially announced that its $1 billion Juno mission is getting a critical life extension to study planet Jupiter. Instead of being crashed into the planet's cloud tops next month, Juno will fly until at least July 2021, according to a press release issued on Thursday by the Southwest Research Institute, which operates the pinwheel-shaped, tennis-court-size robot.

Business Insider reported on Monday that Juno's mission would be extended. The probe has orbited Jupiter since July 2015, but engine trouble forced scientists to collect data about four times more slowly than they'd originally hoped. "Juno needs more time to gather our planned scientific measurements," Scott Bolton, the Juno mission's leader and a planetary scientist at the SwRI, told Gizmodo on Tuesday.

See also: The Mystery of Insane Lightning Storms on Jupiter Has Finally Been Solved

Prevalent lightning sferics at 600 megahertz near Jupiter's poles (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0156-5) (DX)

Discovery of rapid whistlers close to Jupiter implying lightning rates similar to those on Earth (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-018-0442-z) (DX)

Related: JunoCam Works, First New Images From Jupiter Sent Back
Juno Captures Best Ever Images of Jupiter's Great Red Spot
Jupiter's Auroras Powered by Particles from Io
Depth of Jupiter's Great Red Spot Studied, and Two New Radiation Zones Found
Great Storms of Jupiter and Neptune Are Disappearing


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:53AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:53AM (#641079)

    Expect the super-massive blackholes at the centre of our galaxy to evaporate faster.

    (grin)

    • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:39AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:39AM (#641091)

      Oh, my! Your feces baby's feces baby is giving birth to another feces baby! I think a certain fetid existenceness will have to fertilize that too...

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:16AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:16AM (#641104)
      The supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy has a temperature of about 10-14 K. That means that with the cosmic microwave background at a comparatively scorching 2.7 K, it's getting slightly bigger just by sitting there, because it's absorbing that radiation. The black hole won't start evaporating until the temperature of the universe gets even colder than it already is, in maybe 10106 years or so. If it's getting hotter, that means it's absorbing more radiation than it emits, meaning it's getting even bigger, and it's going to take even longer for it to evaporate as a result!
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 21 2018, @12:50PM (1 child)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 21 2018, @12:50PM (#641142) Journal

        If it's getting hotter, that means it's absorbing more radiation than it emits, meaning it's getting even bigger, and it's going to take even longer for it to evaporate as a result!

        Interesting but incorrect.
        The intensity of the Hawking radiation is inversely proportional with the mass of the blackhole: the hotter the blackhole, the smaller the mass.
        So if it's getting hotter, it means the blackhole shrinks and is actually loosing more radiation then it absorbs (citation [ucr.edu])

        However, you are correct in one aspect: trying to "heat" a blackhole by pumping energy from outside will only make it colder.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @12:57PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @12:57PM (#641145)
          Damn pronouns. Meant to say that if the *universe* is getting hotter, then the black hole is only going to get bigger because it will be absorbing all that energy from outside. That was what the idiot I was replying to was trying to imply after all.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:13AM (#641083)

    *breaks champagne*
    ...
    Remember the spots on Jupiter and Neptune? This is them now... feel old yet?

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Rivenaleem on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:17AM (6 children)

    by Rivenaleem (3400) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:17AM (#641105)

    When are we finally going to admit the impact Humans are having on the climate? The Great Red Spot has been a constant for 200 years, but as soon as Humans start going up into space we are seeing immediate change in the climate on other planets. Do you think it a simple coincidence that this article comes within WEEKS of the first car going into space? What more proof do climate change deniers need?

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:12PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:12PM (#641149)

      You, sir, win the Internet. I came to try my hand at the obvious opening for sarcasm, but I leave humbled by your greatness.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:43PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:43PM (#641154)

      Insightful?!

      Is kinda Funny though....

      • (Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:44AM

        by Rivenaleem (3400) on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:44AM (#641726)

        Well we have kinda fucked over certain earth orbits with trash and debris which is coming back to bite us now.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:50PM (2 children)

      by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:50PM (#641276)

      What's interesting about this, is that it's an electric car, yet making it move unquestionably generated more pollution than any other single car ever made.
      With paradoxes like this, it's no wonder the weather's all fucked up.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @11:23PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @11:23PM (#641497)

        Liquid oxygen burns fairly cleanly. It is just a total pain to store and create.

        • (Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:52PM

          by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:52PM (#642004) Journal

          Liquid oxygen burns fairly cleanly. It is just a total pain to store and create.

          As I understand it, the oxygen does not, strictly speaking, get burned. The oxygen, well, oxidizes the fuel which causes the fuel to become "burned up".

          Also, liquid oxygen [wikipedia.org] is extremely cold with a freezing point of 54.36 K (−218.79 °C; −361.82 °F) and a boiling point of 90.19 K (−182.96 °C; −297.33 °F).

          Those temperatures are not conducive to ignition. =)

          Note that I did not say it was impossible. If I recall correctly, a rather dramatic example of this caused one of the SpaceX rockets to blow up. Apparently, some of the super-cooled oxygen actually froze within the carbon fiber overwrap of the even-colder liquid helium pressure vessel. As things flexed, the imbedded, frozen oxygen (oxidizer) combined explosively with the carbon (fuel) causing loss of craft.

          --
          Wit is intellect, dancing.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Jerry Smith on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:39AM (7 children)

    by Jerry Smith (379) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:39AM (#641108) Journal

    The comments above are the reasons I left /.

    --
    All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:45AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:45AM (#641110)

      Get pregnant, you insignificant little insect! Your existence amounts to nothing more than being a breeding sow, so give birth to my feces babies with your rancid, disease-ridden asshole! Give birth until it's broken!

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 21 2018, @12:22PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 21 2018, @12:22PM (#641136) Journal

      Interesting bit of trivia as it may be, what do you expect as "intelligent comments" to this story?
      Come on, I dare you, come with a better comment than the above (and this is including your whinge).

      Personal point of view: if S/N wouldn't exist, I think I can manage to find the news myself; I'm here more because of the discussions the posted stories can elicit than I am about the stories themselves.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:03PM (#641147)

      I see, you figured out in advance that these comments would appear on SoylentNews, so you decided to go here so that you don't miss the opportunity to complain about them, right?

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:05PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:05PM (#641148)
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @01:28AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @01:28AM (#641554)

        That's to show that even tongue-in-cheek trollish posts can trigger interesting answers.

    • (Score: 2) by stretch611 on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:13PM

      by stretch611 (6199) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:13PM (#641399)

      Lighten up.

      Yes, many of the opening statements are stupid. So stupid, that they can't be real... i.e. they are most likely posted as a joke.

      If you can't handle a few joke submissions, I afraid to wonder how much of a special little snowflake you must be.

      Even of you do not like the joke... they are so offensive that you need to complain? Get Bent!

      Get a sense of humor.

      (for the record, I did not post anything on this topic prior to now... But I would have made a global warming joke if no one else did. I never post AC; I stand by my posts and humor even if I troll.)

      --
      Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
    • (Score: 1) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday February 22 2018, @01:21AM

      by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Thursday February 22 2018, @01:21AM (#641548) Homepage Journal

      Have you thought about leaving SoylentNews? I'm seriously considering it. If SoylentNews doesn't fix the horrible "carnage" going on!

  • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:22PM (4 children)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:22PM (#641162) Journal

    Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a fixture in our Solar System, and has lasted 200 years or more. But the storms on Neptune are different: they're transient.

    I've never heard any responsible astronomy source suggest the Great Red Spot is a "fixture", or that it is somehow permanent. To the contrary: Jupiter's Great Red Spot is Shrinking [nasa.gov]. There are plenty of other sources which document that it's "redness" has faded over the last decades.

    It may be fine to say that Neptune's storms are more transient than Jupiter's spot (in fact, Jupiter has *plenty* of measurance sub-storms besides the GRS that are known to come and go as well...) The story has a valid point to make. But the implication that Jupiter's is "more permanent" is nothing I've heard of in the time I've been an amateur astronomer.

    Get little stuff like this wrong, and then everyone who trusts a priori reasoning about astronomy sucks down and believes wrong things. Like Jupiter's spot is de jure permanent when that hasn't actually been established de facto other than "it was there yesterday so it'll be there tomorrow."

    --
    This sig for rent.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:50PM (3 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:50PM (#641194) Journal

      No, you're nitpicking.

      "It's a fixture" - when people imagine Jupiter, they still imagine it having the Great Red Spot [wikipedia.org]. They likely don't know about it fading or shrinking.

      It's not nearly as "transient" as other storms since "It has been continuously observed for 188 years, since 1830. Earlier observations from 1665 to 1713 are believed to be of the same storm; if this is correct, it has existed for at least 350 years". The article also gives an explanation for why it is "more permanent" than Neptune's well-known feature.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:30PM (2 children)

        by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:30PM (#641262) Journal

        Yeah, I could be nitpicking a little. But 350 years isn't an eyeblink in solar system time. Well, maybe just a bit more... It's between one and two solar orbits of Pluto and about 2 of Neptune. Cosmically, the entirety of human civilization really is nothing compared to the longevity of the universe we're in. Depressing, or amazing that we've come this far this fast.

        But if it is fading/shrinking on its own, it isn't a "fixture" - it just has a longer periodicity. (The reality is we don't know if it is a permanent structure AFAICT but the tendency is to recognize it may well be a diminishing structure just like Neptune's only on a larger scale). And the article doesn't speak of Neptune being "more permanent" - that's my construction that is closer to accurate. Nor did the article say that Jupiter gets the same kind of storms too - long period but relatively ephemeral.

        I get you are saying to the average person it may be. That doesn't mean I have to accept it is, or that I shouldn't point out that such a view is less accurate.

        --
        This sig for rent.
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:01PM (1 child)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:01PM (#641280) Journal

          We're unfortunately limited by the history of the telescope. With Robert Hooke and Giovanni Cassini possibly seeing it around 1664-1665.

          We're missing out on a lot of great phenomenon due to still being in the Dark Ages. Millions of objects like 'Oumuamua [wikipedia.org] are zipping into the solar system and right back out every year, but we confirmed the first one in 2017. In the far future, we may be able to spot them before they enter the solar system and use propulsion systems or other methods to guide them into becoming captured objects, thus increasing the amount of usable material ($$$) in our solar system.

          We were also lucky to see Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 [wikipedia.org] impact Jupiter in 1994. The Jupiter-orbiting Galileo spacecraft was still on its way to Jupiter when it made observations of the impact (from 1.6 AU away), and Hubble had launched in 1990 and had its optics fixed by Servicing Mission 1 just months earlier.

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
          • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:39PM

            by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:39PM (#641307) Journal

            We are limited. We also get better and better as time goes on. (We hope!) The shrinking of the GRS, though, seems to have been accelerating recently. Anecdotally, it used to be an easy catch through a modest aperture (60s-70s) according to others I've talked to. Now making it out can be a challenge.

            Shoemaker-Levy 9 was totally awesome. And you got me into looking at amateur efforts to detect lunar impacts in near-real-time (speed of light delay being the limiting factor). If I ever get free time for astronomy again I might want to get into making observations - I'm primarily a lunar observer anyway.

            And whatever I think about the comparison, the Neptune story was interesting to read.

            --
            This sig for rent.
  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:29PM (1 child)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:29PM (#641260) Journal

    Great Storms of Jupiter and Neptune Are Disappearing

    See, "The weather has gotten better lately" is a duh-obvious weather forecast.

    A good weather forecast says "The weather on Jupiter and Neptune will get better over the next 200 years in the areas of Greatred Spot and Stormy Splotch."

    We as a weather-forecasting species need to get with it.

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday February 22 2018, @01:55AM

      by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Thursday February 22 2018, @01:55AM (#641568) Homepage Journal

      Our National Weather Service has A LOT of weather forecasters. Who spend their days talking about the weather, on the taxpayer's dime! We had so much weather last year, so many hurricanes, droughts, tornadoes, floods & snow, what did these guys do? If we FIRE them we can save a tremendous amount of money. So I said, let's fire 248 of those guys. And we'll save $1 BILLION!!!!

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