How Jupiter got its stripes

[Rob-TheStormChaser]

Thirty years after the first mission to Jupiter, new images of the largest planet in our solar system have overturned the accepted explanation of how it got its stripes.

Pictures taken by the Cassini space probe revise long-held beliefs about its darker belts and lighter zones, said Carl Murray of the Astronomy Unit at Queen Mary, University of London, one of the team that report the analysis of the images in the journal Science.

Stripes dominate Jupiter's appearance. Darker ''belts'' alternate with lighter ''zones.'' Scientists have long considered the zones, with their pale clouds, to be areas of upwelling atmosphere, partly because many clouds on Earth form where air is rising. On the principle of what goes up must come down, the dark belts have been viewed as areas where air generally descends.

The Cassini images reverse this, showing the belts as rising areas with the zones sinking.

The pictures clearly show Jupiter's famous Red Spot--a giant atmospheric storm as wide as two Earths and more than 300 years old, with winds of 300 mph.

One of Jupiter's moons, Io, can also be seen, looking like a tiny pea next to the planet.

Analysis of Jupiter's moons--now numbering 47--includes evidence that two of the smaller moons, Metis and Adrastea, supply material for the planet's rings.

Cassini, built by NASA, was launched in 1997 on a mission to Saturn, which it should reach in July 2004. It carries the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, which is due to parachute into the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan.

[JQ Public]

Cool lilttle factoid of the day i do say!

[Rob-TheStormChaser]

Definitely the most colorful and interesting planet!

[Stormsfury]

That's pretty interesting stuff.

What halos from other worlds may look like.
Mars


Jupiter


Saturn

[northweststormchaser]

Cool stuff.

[Rob-TheStormChaser]

Those are pretty neat. Actually if I was stormchasing in a van of some sort, I'd have a portrait like that on the sides....I love those detailed artwork paint jobs....dont see many weather ones!

[Stormsfury]

I have those linked from a website dedicated to haloes.

I have this on my website under the Weather Information Section.

The weather doesn't have to be severe to take in the majestic beauty of weather in general.

[northweststormchaser]

I wish we could have thunderstorms like jupiter

[Rob-TheStormChaser]

lmao that red spot is bigger than earth itself! Man we'd be toasted!

[Stormsfury]

I wish we could have thunderstorms like jupiter

I'm glad that those storms are on Jupiter and not here. It would be like witnessing what happened in OKC on May 3rd, 1999 (Rob's signature of the tornadic supercell)

[Stormsfury]

lmao that red spot is bigger than earth itself! Man we'd be toasted!

The Great Red Spot makes Camille look like a gentle breeze.

[Rob-TheStormChaser]

I think Earth can fit in the 'eye' of that whopper of a storm...we'd be swallowed up alive!

[Stormsfury]

I think Earth can fit in the 'eye' of that whopper of a storm...we'd be swallowed up alive!

You're right, the Great Red Spot is larger than the Earth itself.
Amazing to think also, that Jupiter's orbit, even being the biggest planet in our Solar System also has one of the fastest orbits as well, with a day lasting something like 10.9 hours.

SF

[streetsoldier]

And, to think all these years I thought those stripes were proof positive that the Sun was once "into" leather... :o

[JQ Public]

Hey what does that halo around the moon mean again?!

[northweststormchaser]

The great red hurricane is going to come off in move its way to earth.

[streetsoldier]

Send it to Baghdad, and save us all the trouble, willya?

[Rob-TheStormChaser]

lol that would be pretty cool to have a storm like that pre-progged to hit somewhere.....they'd be scurrying like rats in a storm drain!