Posted on 05/22/2008 10:21:40 AM PDT by blam
Third red spot erupts on Jupiter
18:03 22 May 2008
NewScientist.com news service
David Shiga
Three red spots now adorn Jupiter the Great Red Spot at right, Red Spot Junior at lower left and the third red spot just above it, as revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope (Image: NASA/ESA/M Wong/I de Pater/University of California, Berkeley)
A third giant red storm has flared up on Jupiter, joining the Great Red Spot and the recently developed Red Spot Junior. The spot, along with new measurements of record-high wind speeds on Red Spot Junior, suggest the solar system's largest planet is experiencing a time of global upheaval.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot is an ancient, hurricane-like storm that may have been raging for 340 years or more, based on early observations with telescopes. At three times the width of Earth, it is the largest storm in the solar system.
It was recently joined by a similar, but smaller storm called Red Spot Junior. Red Spot Junior grew out of the merger of three smaller, white storms between 1998 and 2000 and turned red in 2006. It is about the size of Earth.
Now, a third red spot, about half the size of Red Spot Junior, has broken out on the giant gaseous planet. The spot, previously a white storm, now appears red in Hubble Space Telescope images taken on 9 and 10 May. The observations were led by Imke de Pater of the University of California, Berkeley, US.
No one knows for sure what gives the three spots their red colour. But one theory is that especially violent storms dredge up material from deeper in Jupiter's atmosphere, such as phosphorus-containing molecules, which undergo chemical reactions that turn them red when exposed to sunlight.
Ferocious winds
The cloud
(Excerpt) Read more at space.newscientist.com ...
Obama wants to know when their primaries are taking place...
Got It? Get It. Good!
I don’t mind being the new definition of red either.
Jovian children and women hit hardest.
planetary acne
Don't you remember NASA crashed that Pu-238 containing spacecraft into Jupiter a couple of years ago?
Caused by the Jovians driving SUVs and turning their thermostats too high.
Obama will fix that!!
That was supposed to start fusion that would ignite jupiter into a new sun - so you see, it IS global warming on Jupiter, caused by Bush... Bush senior! (Galileo was launched from space shuttle Atlantis in October 1989, during the start of Bush’s first term)
Actually, it happened during the 2000 elections. The networks alternate which party gets red and which gets blue, and in 2000 the Republicans were red and the Dims were blue.
Because of the recount fiasco in Florida, the maps were seen for weeks and weeks, instead of one night only, so the 2000 election colors 'stuck' as representation of two Americas.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_11/005156.php
“Out, out, damned spot!”
By Jove!
I wonder where we could get a planetary sized tube of Extra Strength Clearasil?
Thanks for the heads up. I may just get that, because a lot of the other Playhouse 90’s were good too.
About 20 pieces of comet Shoemaker-Levy hit Jupiter in 1994.
Probably steered there by Karl Rove and his Rovian comet steerers.
Has NOAAJ released its forecast for Red Spot Season 2008?
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