Jupiter’s Great Red Spot one-and-a-half Earths wide: NASA II DIVING INTO JUPITER'S GREAT RED SPOT II Juno data offers new insights into Jupiter's Great Red Spot
The science instrument responsible for this in-depth revelation was Juno’s Microwave Radiometer.
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot — the solar system’s most famous storm — is almost one-and-a-half Earths wide and penetrates about 300 kilometres into the planet’s atmosphere, according to data collected by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
Other revelations from the mission include that Jupiter has two previously uncharted radiation zones, NASA researchers said.
“One of the most basic questions about Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is: how deep are the roots?” said Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in the U.S.
“Juno data indicate that the solar system’s most famous storm is almost one-and-a-half Earths wide, and has roots that penetrate about 300 kilometres into the planet’s atmosphere,” said Bolton.
The science instrument responsible for this in-depth revelation was Juno’s Microwave Radiometer (MWR).
“Juno’s Microwave Radiometer has the unique capability to peer deep below Jupiter’s clouds,” said Michael Janssen, Juno co-investigator from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“It is proving to be an excellent instrument to help us get to the bottom of what makes the Great Red Spot so great,” said Janssen.
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a giant oval of crimson- coloured clouds in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere that race counter-clockwise around the oval’s perimeter with wind speeds greater than any storm on Earth.
Measuring 16,000 kilometres in width as of April 3, this year, the Great Red Spot is 1.3 times as wide as Earth.
“Juno found that the Great Red Spot’s roots go 50 to 100 times deeper than Earth’s oceans and are warmer at the base than they are at the top,” said Andy Ingersoll, professor at Caltech and a Juno co-investigator.
“Winds are associated with differences in temperature, and the warmth of the spot’s base explains the ferocious winds we see at the top of the atmosphere,” said Ingersoll.
The future of the Great Red Spot is still very much up for debate. While the storm has been monitored since 1830, it has possibly existed for more than 350 years.
In the 19th century, the Great Red Spot was well over two Earths wide. However, in modern times, the Great Red Spot appears to be diminishing in size, as measured by Earth-based telescopes and spacecraft, NASA said.
At the time NASA’s Voyagers 1 and 2 sped by Jupiter on their way to Saturn and beyond, in 1979, the Great Red Spot was twice Earth’s diameter.
Today, measurements by Earth-based telescopes indicate the oval that Juno flew over has diminished in width by one- third and height by one-eighth since Voyager times.
Juno also has detected a new radiation zone, just above the gas giant’s atmosphere, near the equator. The zone includes energetic hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur ions moving at almost light speed.
“The closer you get to Jupiter, the weirder it gets,” said Heidi Becker, Juno’s radiation monitoring investigation lead at JPL.
“We knew the radiation would probably surprise us, but we didn’t think we would find a new radiation zone that close to the planet,” said Becker.
The new zone was identified by the Jupiter Energetic Particle Detector Instrument (JEDI) investigation.
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The findings — presented Monday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans — suggest the famous Jovian storm has roots that penetrate some 200 miles into Jupiter’s atmosphere.
The revelation was made possible by Juno’s Microwave Radiometer.
“Juno’s Microwave Radiometer has the unique capability to peer deep below Jupiter’s clouds,” Michael Janssen, Juno co-investigator from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a news release. “It is proving to be an excellent instrument to help us get to the bottom of what makes the Great Red Spot so great.”
The first scientific results of the Juno mission — delivered earlier this year — showed Jupiter to host a multitude of large cyclone-like storms, the Great Red Spot remains the biggest and most famous. It boasts tremendous wind speeds and measures 10,000 miles across, making the storm 1.3 times the width of Earth.
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“Juno found that the Great Red Spot’s roots go 50 to 100 times deeper than Earth’s oceans and are warmer at the base than they are at the top,” said Juno co-investigator Andy Ingersoll, a professor of planetary science at Caltech. “Winds are associated with differences in temperature, and the warmth of the spot’s base explains the ferocious winds we see at the top of the atmosphere.”
The new Juno data also revealed the presence of a previously unknown radiation band near Jupiter’s equator. The zone lies just above the atmosphere and is composed of hydrogen, oxygen and sulfur ions racing at almost light speed.
“We didn’t think we’d find a new radiation zone that close to the planet,” said Heidi Becker, who is leading Juno’s radiation monitoring investigation. “We only found it because Juno’s unique orbit around Jupiter allows it to get really close to the cloud tops during science collection flybys, and we literally flew through it.”
Juno’s Jupiter Energetic Particle Detector Instrument also detected large concentrations of high-energy ion in the planet’s relativistic electron radiation belt. Scientists aren’t yet sure what kind of ions they are or where they come from.
The Juno probe has conducted eight scientific flybys over Jupiter, dipping its trajectory across the gas giant’s upper atmosphere. The spacecraft will begin its ninth close pass on Dec. 16.
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