Weather that’s out of this world
I’ve always found our night sky and solar system to be fascinating and I was amazed by the beautiful new photos NASA recently released of Jupiter captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.
The incredible images showcase everything from faint rings and moons to beautiful auroras.
The telescope also captured the extreme conditions on the planet, including the iconic Great Red Spot.
We often associate stormy weather on Earth with low pressure. However, the Great Red Spot is an anticyclone, or high-pressure storm, in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere that spins counterclockwise with winds that NASA says exceed 644 km/h. Violent weather is the norm on the largest planet in our solar system, with massive storms that produce extreme winds and even thunderstorms.
Daytime temperatures on Mars can reach the freezing mark, but its thin atmosphere causes temperatures to plunge to -129 C at night, according to NASA.
No atmosphere means Mercury reaches temperatures over 400 C during the day and below
-180 C at night, while a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid clouds on Venus creates a greenhouse effect that brings the average temperature to over 450 C.
Saturn’s great distance from the sun means the average temperature on that planet is -176 C, but scientists believe Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has an atmosphere composed mainly of nitrogen that experiences seasons and rains.
Neptune and Uranus are the ice giants with average temperatures near -218 C.
Neptune’s thick atmosphere is covered in clouds and winds that have been measured over 1,931 km/h, while Uranus’s slow orbit can sometimes produce big storms. Fascinating, isn’t it?