Jupiter’s storms and weather, in general, are unlike
anything we’ve ever seen on Earth, which is why scientists have struggled to
fully comprehend the gas giant’s weather mechanisms.
Observing Jupiter and its tremendous storms is the best method to learn more about it, and the Hubble Telescope and Gemini Observatory are assisting us in this endeavour. A new set of observations has provided astronomers with another piece of the puzzle in their quest to comprehend Jupiter: we’ve recently gotten new near-infrared and thermal photos that disclose some of Jupiter’s secrets.
There are two sections to the observations. First, heat
radiation blazing through Jupiter’s huge, thick clouds was detected by Gemini
measurements in the near-infrared (NIRI). Astronomers may merge two images into
one using information from Hubble’s optical photos, generating an overview of
the gas giant’s internal and outward processes.
Michael Wong of UC Berkeley, who led the research team,
said:
“THE GEMINI DATA WERE CRITICAL BECAUSE THEY ALLOWED US TO
PROBE DEEPLY INTO JUPITER’S CLOUDS ON A REGULAR SCHEDULE. WE USED A VERY
POWERFUL TECHNIQUE CALLED LUCKY IMAGING,”
The combined images have revealed unprecedented data.
Jupiter’s cloud regions that seem dark in optical observations (Hubble) are the
ones that glow most brightly in infrared (Gemini), somewhat that tells us that
those specific regions have little to no clouds, compared to much lighter
bands.
The images are part of a multi-year joint observation program with the Hubble Space telescope and Juno observations.
“It’s kind of like a jack-o-lantern,” revealed astronomer
Michael Wong of the University of California, Berkeley. “You see bright
infrared light coming from cloud-free areas, but where there are clouds, it’s
really dark in the infrared.”
As explained by Science Alert, this included a line curving
around the edge of the famous Great Red Spot, a gigantic storm system that has
remained active for decades and is larger than the entire planet. Although
similar features were observed in storms before, scientists were unsure what
was the cause behind them.
Glenn Orton of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained
that “Visible-light observation couldn’t distinguish between darker cloud
material, and thinner cloud cover over Jupiter’s warm interior, so their nature
remained a mystery.”
But the combination of observations managed to clear up
that question. By comparing two sets of images, astronomers observed a glowing
infrared arc that nearly mated to an optical shadow, revealing that the
coloration marked a crack within the storm’s powerful clouds.
But even greater details of Jupiter’s clouds were revealed
when scientists combined the data obtained by Hubble and Gemini with data from
NASA’s Jupiter orbiter Juno. The spacecraft has been making flybys of the gas
giant’s poles and, along the way, detecting radio signals from potent lightning
strikes on Jupiter.
The first flyby’s revealed as many as 377 lightning strikes
around the polar regions of Jupiter. This is unlike what happens on Earth,
where lighting strikes and storms are more common around the equator.
This is explained by how the sun interacts with the
planets. On both Jupiter and Earth, the equator is heated by the Sun.
This created convection currents that drive tropic
thunderstorms on our planet, while on Jupiter, the heat generated by the sun is
much fainter, which stabilizes the upper atmosphere. However, scientists
believe that this heat doesn’t get far from the equator, which means it doesn’t
reach Jupiter’s poles, why makes them more tempestuous.