Why does Jupiter have a Great Red Spot?

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by Magical Realist, Aug 25, 2014.

  1. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    And it keeps going and going. What causes this storm?
     
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  3. PM_ME_URANUS Registered Member

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    Actually, it has been found out that the red spot is slowly shrinking
     
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  5. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    http://www.universetoday.com/25435/why-does-jupiter-have-the-great-red-spot/

     
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  7. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Adding to my previous post is of course the Coriolis effect, a result of the rotational periods of planets.
     
  8. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    A more detailed explanation of Jupiter's great red spot is given in the following article.
    For all those that feel the need to drag some nonsensical alternative proposal from out of their rear end.

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    Why Does Jupiter Have the Great Red Spot?

    Frequently, readers send us questions here on Universe Today. One very good question is ”why does Jupiter have the Great Red Spot?” The short answer is that the Great Red Spot is a storm that has been raging since the 1600s, but a short answer does not tell the whole story. Read on for a much more detailed accounting.

    The Great Red Spot (GRS) is an anti-cyclonic(rotates counter-clockwise) storm that is located 22° south of Jupiter’s equator. The storm has lasted an estimated 346 years, but many scientists believe that it is much older. The storm is known to have been larger than 40,000 km in diameter at one time and can be easily seen with large backyard telescopes. Currently it measures approximately 24–40,000 km east–to–west and 12–14,000 km north–to–south. The GRS is large enough to envelope two to three Earths. Despite the GRS’s enormous size, it is shrinking. In 2004, it had about half the longitudinal size that it had a century ago. Some scientist estimate that if it continues to shrink at its current rate, it could become circular by 2040. A study by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley showed that the GRS lost 15 percent of its diameter along its major axis between 1996 and 2006. Xylar Asay-Davis, a team member on the study, noted that the spot is not disappearing because ”[v]elocity is a more robust measurement because the clouds associated with the Red Spot are also strongly influenced by numerous other phenomena in the surrounding atmosphere.”


    Infrared data indicates that the GRS is colder and located at a higher altitude than most of Jupiter’s other clouds. The cloudtops of the GRS are about 8 km above the surrounding clouds. The storm is held in place by an eastward jetstream to its south and a very strong westward jetstream to its north. Winds around the edge of the GRS peak at 432 km/h, but winds within the storm seem to nearly none existent, with little inflow or outflow. In 2010, astronomers imaged the GRS in the far infrared and found that its central(reddest) region is warmer than its surroundings by about 4 K. The warm airmass is located in the upper troposphere. This warm central spot slowly rotates in the opposite direction of the remainder of the storm and could be a remnant of air flow in the center.


    Alright, so why is the storm red? The exact cause of the coloring has not been proven, but…lab experiments support the theory that the color is caused by complex organic molecules, red phosphorus, or another sulfur compound that are pulled from deeper within Jupiter. The color of the GRS varies. At times it is brick-red, fading to a pale salmon, and even white. The spot occasionally disappears from the visible spectrum and can only be seen as the Red Spot Hollow; its niche in the South Equatorial Belt(SEB). The visibility of GRS is apparently coupled to the appearance of the SEB. If the SEB is bright white, the spot tends to be dark. When it is dark, the GRS is usually light. The periods that the color changes last and occur on an unpredictable schedule.


    As you can see, the answer to ”why does Jupiter have the Great Red Spot?” has been well researched by NASA and other space agencies. While the answer is not crystal clear at this time, future missions to the planet are designed to better study the atmosphere; hopefully, rendering the answers scientists seek.

    We have written many articles about Jupiter for Universe Today. Here are some interesting facts about Jupiter, and here’s an article about the color of Jupiter.

    If you’d like more information on Jupiter, check out Hubblesite’s News Releases about Jupiter, and here’s a link to NASA’s Solar System Exploration Guide to Jupiter.

    We’ve also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast just about Jupiter. Listen here, Episode 56: Jupiter.

    http://www.universetoday.com/25435/why-does-jupiter-have-the-great-red-spot/
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  9. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Which are usually caused by heat which is why we don't see hurricanes in winter or the northern latitudes. So how does this process apply to the considerably much colder atmosphere of Jupiter?
     
  10. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    And the coriolis effect, which would be much more pronounced on Jupiter.
     
  11. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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  12. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Jupiter has great depth and density of atmosphere.
    from your link.....
    "The Great Red Spot is an example of an anticyclonic storm, with winds flowing opposite the direction predicted under the Coriolis effect. They’re typically seen in areas of high pressure and while they run contrary to an observed and understood scientific phenomenon, they aren’t freaks of nature, but the result of special interactions between warm and cold fronts. Using infrared imaging, scientists have discovered that the Great Red Spot is, despite the color, a cold spot, and it sits above the surrounding clouds."

    The coriolis effect would be as predicted at lower depths.
     
  13. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    The Coriolis Effect can't explain the Great Red Spot because it is an anticyclonic storm and is at the every top of the atmosphere. So you are wrong that it explains it.
     
  14. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Not directly. But for the reasons stated, along with the other three or four reasons I have given in previous posts.
    Jupiter has an atmosphere may times larger, and many times thicker then Earth, and rotates on its axis in around 9 hours, more than double the rotation period of Earth or Mars.
    It would seem to me then that the great red spot is overwhelmingly likely to be as most cosmologists think it to be....A huge storm caused by the factors already listed."
    A logical observationally scientifically deduced theoretical assumption, not one dreamed up and apparently dragged out of someones rear end.

    Have you another hypothesis?
     
  15. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Similar storms have been observed on Uranus and Neptune which rotates in about 17hrs.
    Also the clouds/atmosphere on Jupiter and the other gaseous/icy giants, rotate at different rates depending on latitude.
    All these [including the coriolis effect albeit differently] would contribute to these storms, just as they do on Earth.
     
  16. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    27,543
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    The Coriolis effects that are responsible for cyclones and anti-cyclones on Earth are greatly magnified on Jupiter, which has a rotational frequency about 2 1/2 times that of Earth, but this alone would not account for the persistence and size of the Great Red Spot. There are other features similar to the Great Red Spot on the surface (note the white spots in the above images) but none are as large as the Great Red Spot.

    Presumably the persistence of the Great Red Spot is related to the fact that it never comes over land, as in the case of a hurricane on Earth, and that it is driven by Jupiter's internal heat source. Computer simulations suggest that such large disturbances may be stable on Jupiter, and that stronger disturbances tend to absorb weaker ones, which may explain the size of the Great Red Spot. Furthermore, as for the clouds in general, we do not understand fully the reason for the coloring. It has been suggested that certain compounds of phosphorous are responsible for the reddish-brown hue, but this remains somewhat speculative. Thus, we understand the broad properties, but not all the detailed features of this remarkable phenomenon.
    http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/jupiter/redspot.html
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  17. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    No, I provided two great answers.....One to reinforce the accepted mainstream science over our alternative pushers that drag stuff out of their arse, with the example I gave, and the second one inferring that I overlooked the other similar reply.
    I think I can live with that.

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    It's you that lacks the ability to take notice dmoe....or maybe English is your second language.
    Point [1] was referring to Earth....point [2 was referring to Jupiter.
    As usual dmoe, you are unable to see the forest for the trees, as most of your peers here have noted.


    Many references and research, refer to Jupiter and the other gaseous giants, as having a largish rocky core.
    But new data and reasearch is what science is all about, certainly not what you are about dmoe....

    Already explained, and which most people of reasonable normality would understand.
    Only one person has referred to continents on Jupiter dmoe. You. And it was rather a silly reference also.


    It does not surprise me what you believe dmoe....part creationist, part anti mainstream, part pseudoquackery supporter, part anything it seems.
    You really need to remove the blinkers.




    Your stupidity?
     
  18. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Does Jupiter Have a Solid Core?

    Jupiter’s composition is by-and-large a mystery. Generally accepted theory holds that it consists of a dense core made of a mixture of elements, the core is thought to be surrounded by a layer of liquid metallic hydrogen and helium, then the outer layer is proposed to be dominated by molecular hydrogen. The core is often speculated to be rocky. It wasn’t until 1997 that the existence of the core was even theorized. Gravitational measurements were taken, which indicated a mass of from 12 to 45 times the Earth’s mass. That would mean that the Jovian core accounts for about 3–15% of the total mass of the planet. The presence of a planetary core follows accepted knowledge of planetary formation. According to this knowledge base, Jupiter would have had to form a rocky or icy core with enough mass in order to capture such a high percentage of gasses from the early solar nebula. Scientists admit that the planet may lack a core at this time due to the high heat and as hot liquid metallic hydrogen mixed with the molten core, carrying it to higher levels of the planet’s interior.
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  19. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    So why would a thicker atmosphere generate the Red Spot? And given the storm is anticyclonic and NOT the result of the Coriolis effect, what role does a rotation of 9 hours play in creating it?

    I started this thread with the question of what causes the Great Red Spot. So no, obviously I have no hypothesis and evidently you don't either. Thanks for trying anyway.
     
  20. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Jupiter probably has a core of rocky material amounting to something like 10 to 15 Earth-masses.

    http://nineplanets.org/jupiter.html
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    To the best of our knowledge, Jupiter does have a rocky core.
     
  21. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Probably because along with Jupiter's fast spin rate, and coriolis effect, the fact that different levels of cloud, and different Latitudes of clouds rotate at different rates, its eternal heat source, and a multitude of other reasons we do not as yet know about...our experiences on Earth with cyclonic winds etc all have a bearing I suggest.
    We don't know everything MR.....but we still have a reasonable idea.
    Have you heard about the hexagon cloud shape on Saturn?
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140408074827.htm
    Now that's a doozy!
     
  22. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    from the Saturnian link.....
    The UPV/EHU researchers suggest that the hexagon and its stream are the manifestation of a "Rossby wave" similar to those that form in the mid-latitudes of Earth. On our planet the jet stream meanders from west to east and brings, associated with it, the system of areas of low pressure and anticyclones which we have been seeing regularly on weather maps.
     
  23. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    27,543
    Here's an excellent account of the great red spot by Neil De-Grasse Tyson........

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    Now imagine, if you will, a place that is not only fourteen hundred times larger than Earth, but has an equatorial speed that is about twenty-five times as fast, and has a deep, thick, colorful atmosphere. That place is the planet Jupiter, where a day lasts just 9 hours and 56 minutes. It is a cosmic garden of atmospheric dynamics where all rotationally induced cloud and weather patterns are correspondingly enhanced. In the most striking display of the Coriolis force in the entire solar system, Jupiter lays claim to the largest, most energetic, and longest-lived storm ever observed. It is an anticyclone that looks like a great red spot in Jupiter's upper atmosphere. We call it Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Discovered in the mid 1660s by the English physicist Robert Hooke and separately by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini, the feature has persisted for over 300 years. It was not until the twentieth century when the Dutch-born, American astronomer Gerard Kuiper was the first to supply the modern interpretation of the Spot as a raging storm.

    The Great Red Spot, by the way, is bigger than Earth, although its size and shape has varied over the years. It lives in Jupiter's southern hemisphere and rotates counterclockwise, which immediately tells us we have a high pressure system. The coloration, from orange-red to a barely visible pale cream, is generally attributed to various concentrations of phosphorus and sulfur compounds. Close-up images from the Voyager flyby missions of the late 1970s revealed a maelstrom of colorful curlicues at the interface of the Great Red Spot and the surrounding atmosphere. There were also strikingly resolved horizontal belts and zones interlaced with countless smaller cyclones and anticyclones that give Jupiter the appearance of an archaeological cross section of a Big Mac hamburger from McDonald's, bun included. Above all else, however, the Voyager data posed renewed theoretical challenges. It resolved Jovian features down to twenty miles in diameter—astonishingly small when one remembers Jupiter's size relative to Earth. Models of cosmic phenomena are often clean and tidy until they are tested outside of the limits in which they were formulated. Higher image resolution is one such example. When this happens, many models are discarded, others are modified, while some are freshly invented, but jumps in resolution have always been followed by a deeper understanding of the universe.

    Whatever else a model of Jupiter's atmosphere is designed to explain, it should as a minimum, account for basic properties of the Great Red Spot such as its longevity, and perhaps its distinguished size, and that it is an anticyclone. An ideal model would be able to account for all atmospheric motion on Jupiter. The tools available to the theorist are Newton's laws of motion as adapted to the properties of gases and liquids—otherwise known as fluid mechanics.

    Contemporary models do capture the basic features of the Great Red Spot, but very little is known about the structure of Jupiter's under-layers. Jupiter radiates more heat than it receives from the Sun, and there are enormous thermal reservoirs in Jupiter's interior that can drive atmospheric flow patterns. One source is the radioactive decay of trace elements while another is the left-over heat form Jupiter's initial contraction from a proto-planetary cloud to a planet in the early solar system. The sustaining source of energy for the Spot could also (or instead) be tapped from other sources. On Earth, hurricanes are partially driven by the latent heat released to the atmosphere when rain drops condenses out of the air. A similar mechanism may dominate in Jupiter's atmosphere as its gases condense toward its liquid interior. The Spot has also been observed (and successfully modeled) to dine upon smaller turbulent eddies in its vicinity. This cannibalistic behavior is yet another source of energy. Clues to the deeper cloud layers will almost certainly be gained when the spacecraft Galileo passes Jupiter (in December 1995) and parachutes a mini-probe that will measure temperature, density, composition, wind speeds, and lightning events as it descends through the outer atmosphere.

    For now, there is no reasonable hope of describing every one of Jupiter's surface features in detail. A more realistic approach is to construct an atmospheric model that provides a statistically equivalent picture of Jupiter's surface features. In other words, a model of a Big Mac can approximate all Big Macs even though it may not look like any one in particular.

    One nagging problem with models that always produce a single, sustained anticyclone is the blunt reality that Jupiter's northern hemisphere is devoid of a twin Great Red Spot. Clearly, if models show that big spots are inevitable, then the north ought to have one too. Elsewhere in the solar system, the Coriolis force has given rise to a great dark spot on Neptune. We call it Neptune's Great Dark Spot. Like Jupiter's Great Red Spot, it is an anticyclone of epic proportions in Neptune's southern hemisphere that appears without a twin in the north. This is a problem that may require an as yet unexplored north-south asymmetry in both Jupiter's and Neptune's internal structure. One way to induce such an asymmetry would be to survive a cosmic collision in one of your two hemispheres. The July 1994 encounter between Jupiter and the dozens of crumbled comet parts from Shoemaker-Levy 9 left visible and sustained scars on Jupiter's outer gaseous surface. The long-term effects of this impulse of deposited energy remains to be seen. Will the scars form stable new structures among the cloud-tops? Or will the scars dissipate completely into the atmosphere? For the moment, feel free to consider the new blemishes to be extra ingredients in your hamburger.

    Neil de Grasse Tyson is an astrophysicist with a joint appointment at the Hayden Planetarium and Princeton University. His recent book Universe Down to Earth is available from Columbia University Press.
    http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/1995/03/01/the-coriolis-force
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