Astronomers wow world with new view of Jupiter
Telescopes on Earth and in space have been used to reveal the powerful storms on Jupiter in dramatic new detail.
Jupiter is by far the largest planet in our solar system – more than twice the size of all the other planets combined. It is a bubbling combination of gases and liquids and has no solid surface. These gases and liquids get stirred up by powerful winds, forming massive storms that last for decades or more. In order to understand these weather systems better, astronomers combined the powers of three telescopes to create new images of the planet.
Only one of these telescopes is on Earth: the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, in the US. The other two are in space: the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits Earth, and the Juno spacecraft, which is in orbit around Jupiter itself. Each telescope had its own advantage for mapping the giant planet’s storms.
Juno, which has been circling Jupiter since 2016, passes within 3,100 miles of the planet’s clouds every 53 day. It can detect radio waves created by lightning bolts streaking through Jupiter’s atmosphere. These radio waves allow astronomers to see under the clouds. The information coming from Hubble and Gemini, meanwhile, tells scientists how thick the clouds are and how deep the craft can peer into them. Pictures taken by Gemini show heat glowing through the planet’s cloud cover in spectacular new detail.
Astronomers involved in the project have used the images to learn more about the Great Red Spot – a storm twice as wide as Earth that has been raging on Jupiter for more than 300 years. They said one of the biggest discoveries has been that the dark patches in the Great Red Spot are not different types of cloud, as was previously thought, but instead are gaps in the clouds themselves.