Image & Caption Credit: NASA/ESA/Goddard/UCBerkeley/JPL-Caltech/STScI This false-color close-up of Jupiter shows cyclones (arrows) and the wave (vertical lines). It is similar to a wave that sometimes occurs in Earth’s atmosphere when cyclones are forming. ![]() ![]() In Jupiter’s North Equatorial Belt, scientists spotted a rare wave that had been seen there only once before. Similar waves, called baroclinic waves, occasionally appear in Earth’s atmosphere where cyclones are forming. ![]() The current wave was found traveling at about 16 degrees north latitude in a region dotted with cyclones and anticyclones. The researchers also found an elusive wave in Jupiter’s North equatorial belt that had only been once before, by Voyager 2. This streamer rotates and twists through the 10-hour span of the Great Spot image sequence, being distorted by winds blowing at 330 miles per hour (150 meters per second) or more. Hubble detected an unusual wispy filament that spans nearly the entire width of the vortex. The Great Red Spot is actually more orange than red and its core, which usually is more intense in color, is less distinct than it used to be. (Click for animated GIF.) Image & Caption Credit: NASA/ESA/Goddard/UCBerkeley/JPL-Caltech/STScI The movement of the clouds can be seen when comparing the two maps. Data for the two maps shown here were taken during Hubble Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program observations of Jupiter on Jan. Scientists have produced new maps of Jupiter using the Wide Field Camera 3 on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. While the storm had been recently shrinking at a faster-than-normal rate, the most recent changes are consistent with the long-term trend. The long axis of the gigantic storm is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) shorter than it was in 2014. The new data confirms that Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is continuing to shrink and become more circular, as it had been doing for years. A paper describing the team’s findings was published in Astrophysical Journal. The two maps are from nearly back-to-back rotations of Jupiter, making it possible to estimate the speed of Jupiter’s winds. Simon and her fellow researchers produced two global maps of Jupiter using images captured by Hubble’s Wide-Field Camera 3. ![]() “Every time we look at Jupiter, we get tantalizing hints that something really exciting is going on,” said Amy Simon, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The images of Jupiter have already revealed a previously unseen filament in the core of the Great Red Spot and a rare wave just north of the planet’s equator. Collecting these images yearly will help researchers to learn about how these giant planets change over time. Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescopehave produced new maps of Jupiter as part of series of annual portraits of the Solar System’s outer planets. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Goddard/UCBerkeley/JPL-Caltech/STScI This new portrait of Jupiter was produced from observations made using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
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