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‘Clyde’s Spot’ on Jupiter Is Starting to Look Pretty Weird

Rejected submission by Eratosthenes at 2021-05-21 22:41:09 from the Jupiter's Gaseous Permatations dept.
Science

News at Gizmodo [gizmodo.com]:

Last May, a spot suddenly appeared in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere. But as new images from the Juno spacecraft show, the once circular feature has morphed into an enigmatic splotch.

The feature was first detected by Clyde Foster, director of the Shallow Sky section of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa, on May 31, 2020. Foster spotted the spot using his own 14-inch telescope, and, quite fortuitously, NASA’s Juno probe made a close approach two days later, allowing for a close-up view of the new feature.

Clyde’s Spot, as it’s informally known, is a convective outbreak—a plume of cloud that’s reaching out beyond the regular cloud tops—and is located to the southeast of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. Such outbreaks are not uncommon within the gas giant’s South Temperate Belt.

And then, in the void of the April 14- present timeline of SoylentNews, This happened.

On April 15, 2021, Juno performed its 33rd perijove (close flyby) of Jupiter, during which time it captured a new view of Clyde’s Spot—or, at least what used to be Clyde’s Spot. The new image was taken when the spacecraft was 16,800 miles (27,000 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops. Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill processed the image from raw JunoCam data, according to NASA.

The updated view reminds us to not get attached to the beautiful shapes and colors that appear on Jupiter, as many of them are short lived.

Ah, Jovian Weather! Just be happy that persistent cyclones do not exist on Earth.


Original Submission