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Jupiter's Great Red Spot Is Shrinking
cjstaples noted a CNN story proclaiming that
Jupiter's signature red spot is shrinking. Over a 10 year study, the giant storm lost just over half a kilometer per day for a total loss of about 15%. Scientists know about shrinkage, right?
Here I was ready to make some crack about how global warming is causing jupiter's red spot to shrink and this shows that the sun is having some other effect, and there it is in the tags:
"globalwarming manbearpig globalshrinking...."
totally burst my bubble, stole my thunder... I might actually have to do some work.
This is my sig.
Scientists know about shrinkage, right?
Let me just point out that it's very cold in space. Even with the sun nearby, I think we'd all experience at least a little bit of shrinkage if we were in Jupiter's position and it's not fair for the other planets to laugh at him.
My work here is dung.
Could this be related to the expanding of Uranus?
Inversely proportional to Goatse stretch rate.
For a moment I thought this was related to global warming theory. Any explanation WHY the heck it's shrinking with no human activity on Jupiter? Or is there?
It may start to grow again or it my shrink even further all we really know is one day it will probably disappear only to be replaced by another
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Perfect time to send some spam to Jupiter.
Somewhere on Jupiter...
"Welp, reckon that storm front's finally breakin' up, Edgar."
"Ayup. Haven't seen a storm like that since the hundred-fifty-year* one back up near the poles."
"Yup, yup, that one had the cattle all rustled up somethin' fierce."
"Reckon y'don't see storms like that any more."
For some reason, this entire story strikes me as just realizing that Jupiter has weather systems. They just might be longer than Earth ones.
*: Jupiter years.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Please tell me there will be a 2010 joke in here somewhere...don't dissapoint me moviegeeks!
With all the photos we've been taking of it over the past 30 or so years, it's just being coy.
If your only tool is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.
Jupiter is just winking at us.
My webcomic
It's not getting blacker by chance is it?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Quick!
Blame SUVs!
Impose "carbon caps" and expensive "cap and trade" plans that kill industrial growth and limit the ability of poorer countries to improve their standard of living! Who CARES if they're starving to death, this is the PLANET we're talking about SAVING from HUMANS!
Denigrate and attack any doubters! This is FAITH we're talking about, doubt and dissent CAN NOT BE ALLOWED!!!!
Well, it is reasonable to look to other planets for comparison when events happen on a planetary scale.
However, looking at a gas giant is a bit of a stretch. There are basically no points of congruence between a supermassive ball of gaseous, liquid, and metallic hydrogen, and a tiny ball of rock with a thin scrim of water on the top.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
..we need to make sure we stay away from Europa
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
eez. I realize that we get a lot of overheated (excuse the pun) rhetoric from proponents of AGW, but do you skeptics really have to take your rhetorical bandwagon so far in the opposite direction?
Calm down. It's a joke.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
Let me be the first to say that the Great Red Spot is too big to fail!
I didn't do it!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
I hear Jupiter has approached Obama's administration to request some bailout cash - It's not the planet's fault the spot is shrinking, after all.
We should see if we can get the Russians to take US scientists along on a ship next year to investigate.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Jupiter's acne is finally clearing up! Should really do something about all those brown and white rings though... I mean, take a shower once in a while
Where is Smiling Bob when you need him?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
In a related story, NASA has announced the first manned mission to Jupiter, the purpose of which is to examine a large rectangular black object sitting in synchronous orbit above the storm.
I remember hearing this when I was in grade school. Hasn't this been supposedly been going on throughout the latter part of the last century?
/* No Comment */
...with the release of Proactive for Gas Giants.
Isn't it enough just not to believe?
No, we must also mock. Mock heartily. That's what we do in this country.
... Isn't it enough just not to believe?
In a word, NO.
Because as you just implicitly admitted, it's BELIEF that's at the foundation of all the overblown CRAP we've been subjected to.
BELIEF.
In other words, attacking global warming doubters logically has the same basis as Saudi Arabia executing homosexuals for religious reasons.
For just one example, the computer models all the global warming hysteria is based on could not have included all the deep ocean currents discovered in just the past couple of years. Yet they're accurate enough to predict global temperatures to within a degree over CENTURIES?
Sorry, I call BULLSHIT.
The Great Red Spot will start to grow again next month
NT
Maybe the Red Spot is a timer, and when it finally disappears something really interesting will happen, like:
- God (in his Flying Spaghetti Monster incarnation) will appear and prove Its existence once and for all
- Jupiter will emit a cosmic alarm announcing that our solar system is finally finished
- Jupiter will ignite and become a small star
- Mankind will achieve true enlightenment (as every nuclear weapon on the planet goes off simiultaneously)
Any other ideas?
TLR
A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
...something wonderful!
If I wanted my mind made up for me, I'd do it myself!!
Personally I've always thought it was a rather lousy red spot.
That means the Clearasil is working!
Isn't it enough just not to believe?
No, it isn't. Not ever, and not in either direction (for or against Big Al in this particular case). This is why we have science, which is there to PROVE whether or not a thing is true. Belief is a great starting point, but it will never be enough in and of itself.
Someone commented on global warming and other things and I wonder about that. Some say global warming is caused by man and his emissions. Other say it's due to natural causes and likely has a lot to do with changes in solar activity.
This is a potentially testable argument. We have, after all, various probes in the solar system and at least two roaming around on a neighbor planet. Can't we make some determinations based on data outside of our atmosphere how changes in the sun's state affects other bodies in the solar system? Could the changes in Jupiter's storm be related to changes in the sun? And if that were the case, it would seem to lend credence to one side of the global warming argument.
We must stop it! D:
There's "apologists", sure, but then on the extreme other end of that spectrum... there's you.
You'd have us believe that all change is good, and all (specific) change is unavoidable? That's bullshit, spoken by someone who's too cowardly to take responsibility for stupid choices that cause BAD changes to occur.
While apologists may be too quick to adopt responsibility for things and flagellate themselves and their kin, you're too quick to distance yourself and your kin from any responsibility. Nice "fair and balanced" ya got goin' there.
It's global warming, man.
...you had a couple thousand years to gather data. One of the biggest issues is that we're trying to extrapolate a very high order polynomial with poorly defined points which are close together.
And we're trying to do it with many factors contributing. The problem is that everyone wants the answer now, or at the latest in time for Fall sweeps. You just don't get that kind of historic data in such a short period.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Sure, but what about the last 35 minutes? The trend could have reversed by now and we wouldn't know it yet.
See, Global warming is real!
Is it possible to have the text flashing as well? I don't think having the it in BOTH BOLD AND UPPERCASE is enough.
is expanding rapidly.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Another crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Red Storm Linux community today when Jupiter...
The enemies of Democracy are
What an opportunity for another international prize! Here's a subject that needs increased social awareness. Al Gore, where are you when the galaxy needs you?
... for Clearasil.
Have gnu, will travel.
Surely the Jupiterians are burning too much fossil fuels.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
No the red spot is shrinking due to wind cut backs.
Probably doesn't help that everyone is staring at it, too.
Poor guy has cold shrinkage AND performance anxiety.
In Soviet Russia, Great Red Spot shrinks you!
Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est.
I think you have to go back and read the sentence you quoted.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Leon is getting larger!
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
Can't we make some determinations based on data outside of our atmosphere how changes in the sun's state affects other bodies in the solar system?
What makes you think people haven't done just that? And guess what? So far... the answer is 'no', solar variability hasn't resulted in any noticeable changes on the other planets in the solar system (certainly not over the past 50 years, when global warming has accelerated the most).
Now, before you start about Mars, Mars *isn't experiencing warming*. It's experiencing normal, run-of-the-mill seasonal variability. So if Mars, the planet next closest to the Sun, isn't showing signs of any interesting affects, and neither are any of the other planets, why would you conclude that Jupiter is? Sounds an awful lot like cherrypicking to me (which, as it happens, is a fun game that AGW opponents like to play).
Mars has a might lighter atmosphere and Jupiter has an extremely heavy atmosphere. It is precisely the interaction between the atmosphere and the sun's energy that creates what we call "weather." Venus experiences lots of interesting weather due not only to its atmospheric content, but also due to the energy from the sun. Mars, on the other hand, is significantly less dense and while there should be some measurable effects, the measurements may not be as dramatic. Jupiter, however, has an extremely dense atmosphere and while it is considerably farther from the sun may still be affected by it in a significant way. Of course it is all speculation since we really don't even know the cause of the spot in the first place... could be some sort of volcanic source that is petering out.
There will be 2 suns in the solar system after next year(as per 2010).
Thanks Jupiter-sun !
Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire.
Glaxo Wellcome took credit for the reduction and announced that, thanks to it's "Valtrex" brand of medicine, the spot would continue to shrink and eventually disappear, however, they cautioned Jupiter to stay away from Uranus because outbreaks may still occur even when the Jovian is asymptomatic. Jupiter had no comment, but was said to be quite embarrassed and considering a defamation lawsuit.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
Anyone remember Immanuel Velikovsky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_in_Collision
Could this be just the preliminaries for another Venus ejection event?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Gas giants don't have volcanoes, asshole. (Assholes can, however, have gas giants and/or volcanoes.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Are you SURE there is no solid or molten core at the center? The fact that the atmosphere is very dense does nothing to indicate what their core is made of. If you have any evidence or other data to offer to the contrary, I would be happy to read it. But the presumption that a gas giant is highly compressed and cohesive gas only seems... weird.
Valtrex to the rescue again.
What else do we need it for?
The point is, very significant changes can happen to a planet without any human contribution. This much we can all agree on, and the observation in subject is a good illustration.
Back to partisan sniping — has not Barack Obama already fixed the global warming problem some time last year (before even taking office)? The 2008 was, like, the coldest in decades and 2009 is not particularly warm either...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It's more accurate to say "Climate Change"; unusually cold years are also possible.
I'm not sold on the doomsayers, but most climate scientists agree that SOMETHING is going on, and CO2 levels are a strong possible cause. I'm trying to be open-minded in the face of the media frenzy.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I bet it has something to do with global warming. We definitely need to work on it.
The word you were looking for is "anthropogenic".
A few weeks ago I saw a documentary which mentioned the red spot, I think it was one of the 'Naked Science' shows cable. (Geographic channel?)
Anyway, the show aired the proposition that the great spot only persists because it consumes smaller storms, which add energy to it and keep it going.
If you believe that argument, than the red spot will fluctuate in size, shrinking between meals and expanding afterwards, but it's probably going to persist more or less permanently, because Jupiter has so much energy and so many smaller storms to feed the big one.
Scientists know about shrinkage, right?
It shrinks?!
Both of these problems will kill people. Which is what makes evolution work.
So isn't this a good thing ? It improves humanity in the "natural" way. Natural is, like, always good man !
(and for a serious reply : the entirety of Holland has an average height of MINUS 2 meters, so there will be exactly 0 things happening, you also pass by on the fact that all of the following 3 problems will become critical long before any noticeable sea level rise occurs : oil (and energy) shortage, water shortage, food shortage due to overpopulation. Global warming is not a crisis. It's not, by a long shot, the first thing that will kill anyone. Overpopulation is already killing millions today (but not quite enough to prevent further population rise). And this is also assuming that none of the destructive ideologies like islam, dictatorships, socialism, ... make a comeback. All of them, of course, seem to be working on a comeback. If we are to live in peace, they need to be stopped).
Everything is caused by global warming, you know.
Apparently, you and a whole bunch of people decided I was somehow telling you to believe or disbelieve based on faith alone.
When I said "isn't it enough just to disbelieve", the alternative was endorsing a wholly unsubstantiated claim which was the diametrical opposite of the one advanced, i.e. the claim that not only is AGW not happening, that carbon released into the atmosphere has no effect at all!
This was completely obvious from my post, you idiots.
...Jupiter can no longer be declared a planet.
Apparently, you and a whole bunch of people decided I was somehow telling you to believe or disbelieve based on faith alone.
When I said "isn't it enough just to disbelieve", the implicit alternative was endorsing a wholly unsubstantiated claim which was the diametrical opposite of the one advanced, i.e. the claim that not only is AGW not happening, that carbon released into the atmosphere has no effect at all!
I think I was pretty clear, so I don't know how you (and presumably most of the people who modded me down).
God, why does Slashdot have so many AGW deniers? I hang out with geeks all the time and I only ever met a handful, one admittedly being one of the smartest people I know. Perhaps it's because I'm not American and most of you are there; I won't be rude and speculate on just why that might be.
Haha, yeah I misread that one. Sorry about that. Please return to your regularly scheduled Slashdot posting.
"No, we must also mock. Mock heartily. That's what we do in this country."
Mockery and sarcasm are currently protected under the 1st amendment. That doesn't mean that Al and friends can't set up some kind of Cap and Trade on it. (Al and friends on the ground floor of cour$e!) When they start taxing sex I will be purchasing a old typewriter and a small shack in Montana. All that up and down motion is causing the Earth to wobble and will eventually be blamed for something bad.....
I was going to suggest that UrAnus leaked some Anusol onto Jupiter and gave it that "ooh, ahhh" soothing feeling.... of ring contraction...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Due to the pressure and composition of outer layers, I believe that the current theory is that the core of Jupiter is composed primarily of metallic hydrogen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_hydrogen). Regardless of whether this is true or not, the conditions at the core would likely be nothing like terrestrial land and associated conditions (crust, plates, etc)
I can just hear Curnow yelling "its shrinking, its shrinking"
Je me souviens.
It's like this boys. When men get older, it takes a little time for things to get bigger then they use to. All we need is send some pharmaceuticals to Jupiter and he'll be just fine. Just give him some time and stop staring and laughing at him. His red spot will be as big as it was when he was 18 in no time at all.
You're making a fundamental mistake, that being that you are trusting scientists. Not just any scientists, mind you, but scientists whose CAREERS are advanced based on the data they PRODUCE. Scientists are not all-altruistic entities that act for the goodness of all mankind. Scientists ARE PEOPLE whose jobs depend on funding from universities which receive funding from governments and corporations. These governments and corporations are PAYING to get results, namely the results they want. Anyone who knows anything about Al Gore knows that he is a hack. He owns SEVERAL mansions and uses 21x the amount of the average home owner in just ONE of his mansions. He offsets this by buying carbon credits (which do god knows what). The hilarity ensues because he owns the company that issues the carbon credits. Yes 2000 (sorry, less than that. Several scientists sued to get their names taken off of the list) have signed a petition saying that man is evil and is causing all the global warming (which actually peaked around 2005). This was greatly hyped and continues to be hyped by Mr. Gore who is doing his best to help get legislation passed to mandate a carbon cap and trade system (which his company would be in charge of administrating, collecting on, etc). Mr. Gore also owns controlling stock on a major oil company, I almost forgot that. Anyways, Mr. Gore contends that the debate is over and it's his way or the highway, and every chance he gets, he refuses to debate the 31,000 and counting scientists who are trying to give evidence that refutes Mr. Gore's claims. So, in conclusion I would say that there is a huge scam going on, humans are NOT bad for breathing (I prefer not to have to pay for simply existing), Mr. Gore is propagating this scam for monetary gain, yes there is damage done by humans (chemical/oil spills, GMO, destroying animals natural habitats), but we do not have the ability to do the damage that is being attributed to us by Mr. Gore.
by human beings! When will we ever learn? http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/1a4af347eb/eco-commando-episode-1
Gawd, it's not funny!
-- Uranus
The enemies of Democracy are
There will be no research money granted to anyone that does any research that might cast doubt on the current boogie man.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
TFA says 19th century photographs of Jupiter show the red spot was huge and elongated like a sausage. Never saw that before, pics please?
Also, in b4 irrelevant and misplaced global warming and politics-related comments. Oh wait, crap, you guys can't help it can you?
You just got troll'd!
Jupiter (and Saturn and Neptune) puts out quite a bit more energy then it receives from the Sun. So it is hard to say if weather there is driven by solar or internal heat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The most polarizing part of the debate is not whether anything is going on, but whether humans' (negative) contribution to it is significant enough to warrant forcible altering of our behavior — something anti-Capitalists in particular are most fond of. Examples of very significant, visible, rapid changes affecting planets with no occupants (and no media) certainly weaken their (already weak) argument...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Damn! Now it's affecting the solar system.
Back to partisan sniping — has not Barack Obama already fixed the global warming problem some time last year (before even taking office)? The 2008 was, like, the coldest in decades and 2009 is not particularly warm either...
1: No matter how much people on ALL sides of the debate like to scream about the latest short-term variation, one or two years of air temperature data do not constitute a trend. Decades are probably the smallest useful increment for considering climate change.
2: Everyone knows global temperature has fallen recently because of the valiant efforts of Somali environmentalists. Ramen!