Jupiter Gets New Red Spot

saskboy writes "The planet Jupiter is growing a new red spot. Jupiter is already well known for its Great Red Spot storm which is visible through modest backyard telescopes, so it will be interesting if this newer spot sticks around and grows. From the article: 'The official name of this storm is Oval BA, but Red Jr. might be better. It's about half the size of the famous Great Red Spot and almost exactly the same color. Oval BA first appeared in the year 2000 when three smaller spots collided and merged. A similar merger centuries ago may have created the original Great Red Spot, a storm twice as wide as our planet and at least 300 years old.'"

Comments

Nothing new to astronomers

[BadAnalogyGuy]

So the huge pie-faced planet gets another zit... Maybe it should cut back on the Doritos and Mountain Dew.

Re:Nothing new to astronomers

[outsourced]

must be global warming. those jupiterians should really stop driving SUVs and using aerosol cans.

The Domino Theory Confirmed!

[Nova Express]

First one communist spot appears. Now, 300 years later, another one! At this rate, all of Jupiter will be communist in less than 40,000 years.

It's up to us to rescue them. Thinking of the millions of innocent Jovians rotting away in their oppressive gaseous Gulags...

GW

[addaon]

Just try to deny global warming now, Republicans! We have proof!

Re:GW

[MillionthMonkey]

I think before we panic we should all stop to realize that this is part of a continuous process of change where red spots are continuously created and destroyed on Jupiter all the time!
Oh well I suppose a spot will disappear next week ho hum no news here.

...and just before the big date with Venus

[DoctorHibbert]

It was funny in my head.

Re:...and just before the big date with Venus

[Clueless Nick]

Jupiter doesn't go on dates. He just runs away with them. Ask Europa.

Is it ill?

[roman_mir]

Is Jupiter too old to have a case of measles?

I'll be waiting...

[Biomechanical]

...To hear that the red spot has started going black, and then I'll just sit and smile when all the hardcore rightwing religious nuts freak out at a second sun soon after. :)

A boy can dream...

Re:I'll be waiting...

[sharkey]

Nah, that just means that Mick and the boys have moved on to a new venue.

"I see a Red Spot and I want to paint it black..."

It's time for the Sun...

[brian0918]

It's time for the Sun to sit down and have the old birds/bees chat with Jupiter. The planet will start going through some big changes these next few millenia. The fraction of helium in the atmosphere will drop significantly. Its albedo will grow wildly. New rings will start appearing at odd angles. It's nothing to be ashamed of... all gas giants go through this phase of development.

Oh no!

[clockmaker]

The monoliths are multiplying!

Global Warming?

[mcrbids]

I remember reading some time ago that they've discovered ice on Mars, and that the amount of ice at the poles shrinks every year, indicating global warming.

Now, Jupiter has this new storm that's beginning to rival the classic Red Spot. Is this more sign of a warming solar trend?

Re:Global Warming?

[zippthorne]

Actually, the sun IS burning hotter currently. AND we know that it varies in cycles. For instance, the 22 year sunspot cycle is one cycle of varying solar constant. Why assume that other cycles are not also superposed?

Re:Global Warming?

[SnarfQuest]

Now, Jupiter has this new storm that's beginning to rival the classic Red Spot. Is this more sign of a warming solar trend?

It's those two damn SUV's that NASA has running around Mars! Everyone who watches TV knows that SUV's are the only thing that can cause Global Warming! They are exporting our Global Warming to Mars!

Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

This is excellent, because the Great Red Spot has become less great and less red over recent years. When I first spotted it through a scope, it was a pretty impressive sight. Lately it has changed to become a less intense colour, leading some observers to give it names like "the Great Salmon Spot" or the "Great Brownish Smudge". It is also shrinking - being half the size it was 100 years ago.

The creation of new spots has been predicted (as part of the rapid "climate change" that has been affecting Jupiter over the past few years) and is all probably cyclical, but I was somehow excited by reading this news.

Advice:

[Quaoar]

I wouldn't hang out with Jupiter for a while...it's "that time" of the millennium, and its a little cranky...

Re:Advice:

[jrockway]

True, but do you really want to hang out with a "gas giant"? I think not.

Atmosphere probe?

[MichaelSmith]

The article doesn't say much about what is causing these huge weather patterns to be so stable on Jupiter, and the reason is that we actually know very little about what goes on underneath the outer layers of cloud.

Our one and only atmosphere probe was a surprising success, but it was not built to last. A different probe, supported by a balloon rather than a parachute, was flown on venus and it worked well.

I think it is time to have another go at a jupiter atmosphere probe. This time try for a hot hydrogen balloon, heated by an RTG. If we don't do the basic research we will never understand the biggest planet in our solar system.

Re:Atmosphere probe?

[DerWulf]

This might be a little off-topic but I'd be glad if somebody cleared that up for me:

Mars' gravity: 0.376G (Wikipedia)
Titans' gravity: 0.14G (Wikipedia)

Mars' atmospheric pressure: around 75% of earths
Titans' atmospheric pressure: around 150% of earths

Now, I've always thought that Mars was so cold because the atmosphere was too thin to "hold back the heat". Also, I've been told that Mars atmosphere was thin as it is because Mars gravity was too low to prevent atmosphere to escape into space. Now how come Titan has double the atmospheric pressure than Mars with barely half the gravity? What am I missing?

Re:Atmosphere probe?

[Shadowmist]

One of the key differences is temperature. If Titan were placed in Earth orbit the situation would be dramatically different, the atmosphere and probably a good deal of Titan itself would evaporate and be blown away. However out by Saturn way, the mean temperature is what we call in the technical sense cold.

Also, Titan's orbit is filled by a toroidal cloud of hydrogen much of what does escape is reabsorbed by the moon itself. Sky and Telescope had a good article about it a decade or two ago.

A bit of Earth's atmosphere blows out into space as well. Apollo 16 brought back some nice UV photos of the Earth's hydrogen corona, caused by splitting of H20 molecules in the upper atmosphere by UV light. The hydrogen is eventually lost to space but not at a rate that we have to worry about losing our oceans soon... at least not to evaporation.

I'm betting it is herpes

[SensitiveMale]

After all, he is right next to that slut Saturn.

Re:I'm betting it is herpes

[republican gourd]

Err... Saturn is his father.

Obligatory Chicago comment

[gbobeck]

"...a storm twice as wide as our planet and at least 300 years old."

Sounds like the typical Chicago winter...

And...

[danwesnor]

Meanwhile, back at home, Earth scientists are busy building plausible explanations as to how fossil fuel loving Republicans are behind this major environmental ship on our solar system's largest planet.

Life on Jupiter?

[BRUTICUS]

I've always wondered why a planet like Jupiter couldn't harvest life. I mean, why couldn't another type of life with other needs arise. Why couldn't liquid hydrogen, helium or ice be a source of energy for another lifeform. Plants on earth don't need oxygen.

Re:Life on Jupiter?

[Antique Geekmeister]

Raw hydrogen needs to react with something to generate energy. And react it does! You'll almost never find pure hydrogen available except in an environment where it's very hot and breaks down chemicals, or where there's nothing else to combine with (such as the Sun itself). Raw helium reacts with nothing: it's a noble gas, and you can't harvest energy from chemical interactions with it because there are so few that occur. Ice is cold water: the energy available from it was the result of hydrogen combining with oxygen, which released a lot of energy but makes it tough to get any more energy out of it now that it's already turned into water.

Now, there are levels of Jupiter's atmosphere where more complex and useful molecules are likely, due to pressure and lots of available components. Methane, for example, or other useful hydrocarbons that would have some energy to release and could be used for fuel in various interactions should be quite popular at some levels of that very deep atmosphere. And there are some fascinating proposals for how life could eveolve there. But please actually look them up, and maybe take a basic chemistry course to learn about what "using something for energy" means about the chemicals involved.

Re:Old? Not really.

[saskboy]

That's what I thought until I noticed the story was from yesterday, and it was because the spot had only recently turned RED from white.