Huge Storms Converge on Jupiter

tpoker writes to tell us NASA is reporting that the two biggest storms in the solar system are about to collide on Jupiter. From the article: "Storm #1 is the Great Red Spot, twice as wide as Earth itself, with winds blowing 350 mph. The behemoth has been spinning around Jupiter for hundreds of years. Storm #2 is Oval BA, also known as 'Red Jr.,' a youngster of a storm only six years old. Compared to the Great Red Spot, Red Jr. is half-sized, able to swallow Earth merely once, but it blows just as hard as its older cousin."

Comments

Collide?

[thePig]

From the article "There won't be a head-on collision. and the storms' outer bands will pass quite close to one another.
I guess the summary was a little bit of a hyperbole. Esp. for an event that happens every two years.

Re:Collide?

[jbrader]

You're right, but they're expected to come closer this time then they have in the past.

Re:Collide?

[helioquake]

No, they aren't closer. It's the same as the last two encounter.

What signifies about this particular encounter is that the small oval is thought to be intensified its strength recently (when its color changed from grey to red) and that just *might* cause a bit more interesting interaction between these two storms (when they pass by closely). It's a pure speculation based none other than intuition of scientists. Not based on a hydrodynamic simulation; just a wild ass guess on their part.

Of course, they wouldn't say that. That'd make this whole thing, well, boring.

Re:Collide?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Not based on a hydrodynamic simulation; just a wild ass guess on their part.

Fluid dynamics, particularly on such a massive scale as storms on a planet like Jupiter, is still largely a matter of wild ass "guess"timates. With good reason.

The basic equations of fluid mechanics, the Navier-Stokes equations, are a second order, non-linear system of partial differential equations. Atmospheric gases are also compressible flows. Couple this with aerosols, rotation of the planet, and mondo awkward boundary conditions due to the surface curvature; it's lack of a crust; and the lack of a defined "end" of the atmosphere, finally sprinkling a generous dose of chaos theory in to account for sensitivity to initial conditions.... and you've got a problem that is to all intents and purposes, completely unsolvable.

And that's "just" the fluid dynamics problem. And the continuum hypothesis isn't the only way to solve it. You could use Lagrangian mechanics if one were so inclined.

And these are just theoretical issues. We haven't even spoken about the practical difficulties. First and foremost, throw hope for an analytic solution out the window, because it's not going to happen. You've got to go with a numerical solution. Which brings up the next question of which numerical techniques to you use, and how accurately do you use them. You've got to factor in time, cost and cpu ability. You'll have to parrallelise the whole deal, and make sure it's accurate enough to remain stable for long enough to predict but you want but quick enough so that you'll get your answer before the actual event happens.

And last, but by no means least, once you've got that data, how do you analyse it? How do you even present it? Remember, we're talking about 3d vortices here, embedded in a globe. How do you make sense of it all. What points are of interest? What events are key? What can you learn from all this? What size font should the image titles have? How will you make a paper out of all this!?

Faced with such an operation, you're often better off performing a simulation when faced with a fluid mechanics problem, or in the case where simulation is impossible such as with Jupiter, just make a wild assed guess, sit back and enjoy the show.

Re:Pretty Sweet "Amateur" Telescope ..?

[Tablizer]

What kind of strength/magnification do you need to see Jupiter in that resolution?

You are not going to get Hubble or Voyager level views. Many amatures now digitally enhence their images such that you see more in the photo than what the eye would see in the scope. One fairly recent technique is to take hundreds of digital images and then digitally average and realign the detail. The Earth's atmosphere wiggles and sometimes acts kind of like a magnifying lens. If you can capture these magnification spots when they occure and add them up, you get a nice photo.

Anyhow, I would guess that you need at least an 8-inch reflector or 5-inch refractor to see the two spots with recognizable detail. It also depends on sky conditions and viewer training. It takes a while to train the eye to see detail on planets thru a scope.