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Jupiter's Great Dark Spot
Edball writes "For more than a century astronomers thought that the Great Red Spot was the biggest thing on Jupiter. Not anymore. Images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have revealed something at least as large,
The Great Dark Spot."
In related solar system news, pajamacore writes "Space.com reports that the first extrasolar planet to have its atmosphere detected is having its gas envelope boiled off by heat and blown away by tidal forces. At present, the planet is 70% the size of Jupiter but its orbit is closer to its parent star than Mercury's is to our own Sun. It should be a treat to eventually see the planet's core and maybe it'll clue us in a bit to gas giant formation."
So I guess mankind may as well send a spaceship there and find out about the all-mighty monoliths preparing for sparking life in Europa.
Not bad for something that cost 15% of the Federal Foodstamp budget in FY2001.
Or only three days (<1%) of the current USA defense budget...
The image is artificial (composite of Cassini ultra-violet (UV) images)...and subject to artifacts. Squint and look to the left...that should soften it up just enough to make it look 'real'...
c'mon...
Good point! Thanks. :)
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Cassini is the last of the "billion dollar probes". Others in the series included Terra, Galileo, Magellan and Mars Observer. These probles are a legacy of the 80s. It was the astronomical cost of these probes that made NASA launch the "faster/better/cheaper" programs.
Cassini predates F/B/C and is the end of an era. We won't see the likes of Cassini again in our life times.
It's difficult to say which is better, a lot of F/B/C probes (think plastic disposable watches), or a single billion $ probe (think Rolex: takes a licking and keeps on ticking). I think there's room for both types.
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The piddling money we use on space exploration cannot even begin to solve the world's hunger problem. However, there's the odd chance the said space exploration will sometime in the future solve the world hunger problem (from results in zero-gravity growth experiments to terraforming). That slim chance is certainly better than that offered by e.g. our military. I doubt its enormous budget will in any way affect world hunger except negatively.
If I had been in more of a hurry, I would have completely missed the thing about the gas envelope, which I find very interesting and would have stopped to read, because I already knew about the dark spot on Jupiter and wouldn't have considered it worth my time.
Were the two stories combined by the article submitter, or was this more weirdness from the /. editors?
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Okay, so mod me down for offtopic, but one thing that has always bothered me is, why don't people seriously (i.e. besides science fiction) consider the possibility of life of some form inside a gas giant? Sure, there is no liquid water, hence probably no "life as we know it", but if there are other forms of life as we don't (yet) know it, wouldn't this be an even greater discovery?
What is needed for life (of any reasonable definition) to evolve in an environment, is that arbitrarily complex structures can form in such an environment. Basically, the environment must be "interesting". Nothing ever happens on the surface of our moon, so we don't expect life to evolve there. On the other hand, all kinds of cool chemical reactions can occur in liquid water - as has happened here on Earth. But what about Jupiter's atmosphere? There certainly are interesting molecules floating about - in fact the "Great Dark Spot" is conjectured to be a cloud of hydrocarbon droplets. There is plenty of energy - kinetic (storms), electric, magnetic, some solar as well as plenty of radioactivity. What's more, the environment is HUGE. You have all ranges of pressure from near-vacuum to something ridiculously dense in the core, and everything in between. Is it possible for some region inside Jupiter to have what it takes for life to evolve? And, since there are other sources of energy besides solar, this might happen in the dark depth, where we will never find it. Maybe there's a whole civilization deep in there that we're not aware of.
Does this remind anybody else of the Slylandros in StarControl 2?
"...Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Explain to me how spending money on the military is bad? What else is the federal government supposed to spend our taxes on??
As far as I'm concerned, the government's 1 and only job is to protect us so that we can live our lives however we choose. It is not the federal government's job to compensate for poor financial planning. It's not the federal government's job to provide to take care of me when I won't take care of my self. It's not the federal government's job to take my hard-earned paycheck and give it to someone who probably hasn't earned it.
So let me ask you again; what SHOULD our federal taxes fund? If it's anything more than protecting our freedom, it's none of the federal government's business.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Either Cassini is really expensive for an unmanned research probe or poor people are being neglected. I mean, space exploration is great, but so is making sure that everyone has food to eat.
Look, we have enough money and food to feed everyone on the planet decently, we just don't choose to, or our governments don't choose to, or someboday somewhere has decided that we aren't going to...
The money spent on the space program is a drop in the ocean, and has absolutely nothing to do with the fact there are still people starving to death in the 3rd world. If we aren't going to spend it on feeding people anyway (and lets face it, we aren't) better to spend it doing something to advance science and human knowledge than buying another couple of B-1B bombers, surely?
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
The government has more jobs than just protecting us. Even so, "protection" is a very vague concept that entails more than just having a strong military. We the people are one in the same as the country, and so to protect us, the country must be protected as well. We don't need to just be protected from invading armies. We need to be protected from falling behind in the world as well, and that means more than just the military. In order to ensure a future for our nation (which is really why you're protecting it in the first place), you must have a basic framework within which people can live. Our people need to be educated in order to remain competitive in this global economy, therefore the government's job is also to provide basic education to its citizens. We need businesses to make and sell products that let us live our daily lives, and we need to be protected in case they grow too big. Therefore the government's job is also to create an economic infrastructure (the treasury and the mint), transportation (so that people have the freedom to travel and goods can get to where they need to be), telecommunications (or at least regulation thereof, so that people have the freedom to communicate with other people, and businesses can get their jobs done), welfare (because a temporarily unemployed person with no income cannot afford to pay bills, and therefore puts no money back into the economy, which does nothing for our nation. after a certain point, they become a drain on the economy, but welfare can be good when done properly), and taxation (because providing all of these services costs money).
I'm not talking small incidents (like 9/11), I'm talking threats to the nation's existence; the last time I can think of is WWII.
If you can be bothered to read the constitution then you would realize that America was never designed to have a standing military. The only purpose of the military was to combat a real threat to the nation (ie war). If you think about it this way, the US has been in a state of "war" for over 60 years...which seems kind of ridiculous...
Having a standing military gives the Executive branch too much power--it can declare war without bothering to worry about what Congress or the other branches think (not to mention the people of the nation).
Also, the federal government's role is not limited to the defense of the nation. If you read the preamble, it's purpose might be more clear.
Constitutional quibling aside, wouldn't you want your federal government to be able to protect you when the aliens come?
No the orbit would not get bigger and bigger. What force would act upon it?
Yes it would, actually. The planet it doesn't need a force acting on it to pull it away. The point is that there is less force acting on it to keep it close in. The star and the planet orbit around a common center of mass. If either one of them loses mass, the radius of their orbits around the c.o.m. will get larger.
I'm no astronomer, but wouldn't the force of attraction between Jupiter and the Sun be dependant on the masses sum of their masses. As the mass of Jupiter decreases it so would the force of attraction. As the force of attraction decreased wouldn't the orbit get larger?
I have all of these question marks because I'm not sure how the reduction in mass would affect the momentum of the Jupiter. Lemme try to work this out before you answer me.
The gravitational force between the Sun and Jupiter would be ((G * massSun * massJupiter)/ (orbit of Jupiter)^2).
The momentum of Jupiter as it travels in its orbit would be (massJupiter * orbitalVJupiter).
It seems to me that if the momentum of Jupiter exceeded the force of attraction between it and the Sun, Jupiter would just drift away. and if force of attraction between Jupiter and the Sun exceeded Jupiter's momentum it would be pulled into the Sun. Therefore it seems that the two forces must be equal.
Since the mass of the Sun, the orbital velocity of Jupiter, and the distance between the two bodies is effectivly constant, reducing the mass of Jupiter should have equal affect on both the momentum and the force of attraction.
So to answer my question: No. the orbit of Jupiter should not get any bigger.
Did I miss anything?