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Astronomers have proposed that Jupiter's Great Red Spot is heating the upper atmosphere of the planet by hundreds of degrees:
Scientists may have found their answer to why temperatures in Jupiter's upper atmosphere are similar to those on Earth, even though the planet lies five times further away from the sun. Using an infrared telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii, observers found that above the Great Red Spot (GRS) the upper atmosphere is hundreds of degrees hotter than other observable parts of the planet.
"We could see almost immediately that our maximum temperatures at high altitudes were above the Great Red Spot far below - a weird coincidence or a major clue?" Boston University research scientist James O'Donoghue said. The study was described in the journal Nature [DOI: 10.1038/nature18940]. Through a process of elimination, scientists worked out that the hot spot must be being heated via the storm below. The exact process for such heat transfer is unknown, but experts have put forward that acoustic or gravity waves from below could be raising the temperature.
As National Geographic puts it, the Great Red Spot is churning out air "hotter than lava" (≥ 1300°C).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28 2016, @10:40PM
Jupiter may be making powerful gravity waves. Maybe the gravity waves that LIGO found came from there instead of from black holes or big bangs.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @12:52PM
You are confusing gravitational waves (ripples in spacetime) with gravity waves (ripples in the atmosphere along a pressure boundary perpendicular to the force of gravity)