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: 2) by edIII on Thursday July 28 2016, @10:00PM
So, Jupiter's Red Spot has it turned up to 11? How does acoustic energy result in atmosphere of that volume heating up by hundreds of degrees? Fascinating.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday July 28 2016, @10:15PM
In unrelated news, a black ship was spotted orbiting the planet, signalling the end of Disaster Area's hiatus (caused by a temporary death for tax reasons).
ref. [wikia.com]
(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)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Friday July 29 2016, @07:24AM
Ordinary friction.
The thing's moving at hundreds of miles per hour, has been for hundreds of years, and is 30,000 km wide (two to three Earths can comfortably fit inside).
It's a storm of epic proportions, and even our piddly little storms on Earth can heat up the local air by many degrees (just found an article that said one fairly-average and quite brief UK storm could heat the North Pole by 50 F - 10 C).
Even if you take that a basic small storm can raise the temperature by 10 degrees, and just multiply up naively, that's thousands of degrees before you even get close to the same size, length of time, speed, let alone whatever it is that's actually being blown about (we're not quite sure? If it's a more viscous fluid than air being blown about like that, there's unbelievably more amounts of energy straightaway).
Like all things astronomical, the sheer scale of this thing is unimaginable. A storm that would strip flesh from bone, from several entire copies of our planet, in a matter of seconds, has been raging for hundreds, possibly thousands of years. And in the grand scheme of the one planet it's on, it's called a "spot".
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28 2016, @10:19PM
All those who said it's the other way round, eat your hats!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Thursday July 28 2016, @10:41PM
> 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.
They couldn't take three seconds to explain how they dismiss the trivial hypothesis: the storm includes/creates/is_symptomatic_of a giant heat circulation, bringing heat from lower atmospheric layers?
"Hey look, a vortex the size of a planet, and it's really hot above it ... could be gravity waves!"
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday July 28 2016, @11:24PM
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday July 29 2016, @10:33AM
Indeed. I was under the impression that gravity waves can only be generated by concentrations of mass (lots and lots of mass for any significant amount of gravity) and that, once generated, they propagate outwards, getting gradually weaker but otherwise pretty much impervious to anything in their path. The idea that gravity waves could be generated or influenced by something as mundane as weather seems pretty unlikely.
If I'm wrong, however, it's extremely exciting. That would imply the possibility of artificially generating / manipulating gravity waves using mechanical and/or energetic means. Artificial gravity and reactionless engines anyone?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @03:42AM
Someone else wrote: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)
(Score: 2, Informative) by kai_h on Friday July 29 2016, @09:45AM