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Jupiter's Third Red Spot
Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the solar system's largest (and longest-lived) storm, was joined by another in 2006, dubbed Red Spot Junior. Now a third red spot near the first two has been photographed by the Hubble space telescope. This is a storm about half the size of Earth. Here's a photo of the new storm (it's the one on the left). From New Scientist: "No one knows for sure what gives the three spots their red color. But one theory is that especially violent storms dredge up material from deeper in Jupiter's atmosphere, such as phosphorus-containing molecules, which undergo chemical reactions that turn them red when exposed to sunlight."
Jupiter really has to start wearing protection when it goes all retrograde with Venus.
With a powerful enough laser (more powerful than we currently have, IIRC), it might be possible to lase the area of the Red Spot and perform absorption spectroscopy.
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
it's just a third nipple
What would be really, really cool is if we ever send a probe that could figure out the core of these massive gas giants. Solid iron? Molten nickel? Some weird mix of whoknowswhat?
The article explicitly says: "The new spot's size has not been announced. The Great Red Spot is roughly as wide as the entire Earth." And from the photo, the new one definitely isn't half the size of the Great Red Spot.
It's true that there's not much on Jupiter besides atmosphere, but it's still weird to see what amounts to just a huge cyclone lasting for centuries -- or more -- I suppose we don't have any good idea when the Gred Red Spot first appeared.
Presumably Earth's atmosphere is just too thin to support weather systems of that longevity, although it's hard to think of a good scaling argument for why the size, thickness, mass et cetera of the atmosphere should dictate the scale of the duration of events in it.
But I wonder if there are parallels in ocean events, here? We have the El Nino/Nina business, the Atlantic Oscillation, and these things at least have periods near decades. Perhaps some of what we consider "permanent" features of the oceans, like the Gulf Stream, are merely "storms" like Jupiter's Red Spot that last several centuries.
Jupiter is starting puberty. Now, just how long will it be before it starts to repel away from the sun?
Jupiter should really get that looked at, it seems to have metastasized. Yikes.
I start the day with coffee and I end it with a beer. In between I wonder what the hell I'm doin' here.
Look at how global warming is affecting even outer space. You SUV drivers should be ashamed.
The increased storm activity on Jupiter is a result of Anthropogenic Global Warming. I blame George Bush.
the smallest of the 3 is on a collision course with the largest. they should merge in August.
You implied that anyone who believes in anthropogenic global warming must be stupid enough to think it could affect Jupiter as well. And that everyone who believes in AGW must be a Bush basher.
Very clever, and such a perfect example of the unbiased and scientific mindset of deniers everywhere. No one has ever thought of putting it quite like that before. You must be so proud of yourself.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The OP succinctly and humorously made several valid points:
1) Global warming is occurring everywhere in the solar system due to increased solar activity.
2) This fact is completely unknown to most everybody who "believes" (as you put it) that global warming is a crisis.
3) The fact of extraterrestrial warming is glossed over entirely by scientists and media presenting information to the public because it would "damage the cause".
Your "unbiased" "scientific" mindset causes you to be ready to jump down the throats of anyone who voices a contrary opinion. It apparently has deleterious effects on the sense of humor as well.
First it was Mars. "Better Red and Dead!" Now it's Jupiter. Oh, it starts as just one red spot. Then, when your telescope is pointed at Saturn, another appears, then another. We're on a decline that will not be stopped.
We interrupt this rant to prevent any insipid Uranus puns.
Move along, now. Nothing to see here.
Invenio via vel creo
I wonder who they're using Planetary Protector (Deniable) against this time?
Hydrogen lies at the top of the Alkali Metals in the Periodic Table of Elements, and usually it is the "outlier" of the group. Maybe this just shows it isn't that much different than the others after all, if you're blind to insanely high pressures. Then again, I don't know what Sodium metal under 6 million bars of pressure would look or act like.
The second article in the story claims that the Big Red Spot is "roughly as wide as the entire Earth", which of course is wrong it's about 3 times the diameter of earth, as the first and correct article claims.
;)
So their problem wasn't reading too fast, it was clicking the wrong link.
The enemies of Democracy are
My God, it's full of spam!
Which is actually know anything.
2) This fact is completely unknown to most everybody who "believes" (as you put it) that global warming is a crisis.
No, it's known by a great many. It's already been studied, and accounted for, by climatologists. It's discussed frequently with regards to global warming, because increasing solar output combined with increased greenhouse gases makes the problem even worse.
Your "unbiased" "scientific" mindset causes you to be ready to jump down the throats of anyone who voices a contrary opinion.
Why yes we're ready to jump down the throats of peoples whose opinions are conceived in abject ignorance, but who insist on presenting their uneducated ignorant opinions as though it is not only equal to, but superior, to the opinions of those who have done actual science in the field. These are not the same type of opinion. Stop pretending that having this explained to you is somehow a form of censorship or a sign of just how unreasonable everyone else is.
The enemies of Democracy are
...when the three red spots are on Uranus.
John McCain. He'll remember how old the great red spot is.
yay, increased solar activity along side CO2 levels! man, we're screwed no matter how we slice it. Thanks for the response, i hadn't thought of the solar factors.
You know, I looked at that picture and thought, "that makes a good work of abstract art. That would look nice hanging on my wall."
Proverbs 21:19
Please mod up people who try blaming this on Microsoft. After all, this is Slashdot, and we have a reputation to uphold.
So if you over populate a planet, cut down forests, grow more food, what happens?
You will change rain fall patterns, the mountains might still be as cold, but get less rain, thus the glaciers shrink, its still cold tho. They always melted, but the huge amount of new
snow kept it balanced.
So yes, the planet is warming, but its the cause thats iffy I think, is it 100% co2 based? doubt it, its not that powerful, and I bet the rain fall pattern change
is a bigger factor. Its nice to blame peoples consumptions, but if we say, hey it doesnt matter how green we live, its the fact of this many people thats the problem, then
the current people wont bother to live green.
An orderly decline in populations is needed, 1 child policy, which will be massively bad for economies, but thats better than 50% of the population starving to death in a 12 month period.
Mr Economist - take note, you cannot increase perpetually the population growth, learn some physics. Even nature knows this, if stars get too big they supernova.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Is it fun?
/. away and go work on some teaching materials on a computer that is definitely contributing to the global entropy by running energy piped from a nuclear reactor through a Rube Goldberg contraption of a scale that very few of previous centuries could have even begun to imagine. Lots of entropic processes here.
/. itself existed. If you want to solve the problem, however, screaming about it is not the best solution. There is plenty to do in learning to use less damaging technologies to get the necessary jobs done, in learning to leave the unnecessary jobs undone, in encouraging others to do the same from your example, and in preparing for when it all hits the fan. The more sane people there are when the waves and the droughts and the plagues hit, the more sane people there will be who survive.
As someone who believes that industry has been far too wasteful of far too many things for far too many decades, I see at the whole "global warming" crusade in pretty much the same way as I see Greenpeace and Soukagakkai and Scientology.
Out of balance.
A day late and a hundred dollars short.
Barking up the wrong tree. Searching under the lamppost where they think there's light instead of in the shadows where the wallet was dropped.
Running around screaming the obvious answers instead of stopping to dig for the real meanings to things.
In the best light, getting excited about a single micro-diamond of truth when there are large pearls, rubies, amethysts, sapphires, beryls, all sorts of things of value just lying around being ignored. In the worst light, riding the handiest hobby horse of a true principle because it makes them feel empowered.
If you really think global warming is simply a matter of reducing greenhouse gases, fine. You start. Turn off your computer, go get a poster, and demonstrate somewhere. The worst you'll generate doing that is a little methane. Be sure to walk or bike there, of course. (Not knocking footpower, I don't have a car, myself. Just reminding you.)
In the meantime, I'm going to put
Helping teach kids to think for themselves instead of contributing to the economic and sociological entropy by buying packaged answers like the current fuss about global warming.
It's going to happen. It was already way too late before
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I bet if someone squeezes the new red spot, a giant plume of sticky white puss will come out!
No, I will not work for your startup