- Reaction score
- 1,697
Two new studies using data from the Juno spacecraft have shown the first direct measurement of the depth of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, the storm that has been raging on its surface for at least hundreds of years.
Astronomers have gazed at Jupiter’s gaseous swirls for centuries, but for the first time, Juno, which launched into orbit around the planet in 2011, is giving them a glimpse of what lies beneath the surface of the planet’s great storm. In doing so, it could give researchers a window into the inner workings of the solar system’s behemoth world. One study used gravitational readings and the other microwave data from Juno’s Microwave Radiometer instrument during recent flyovers of the storm. Both were published in the journal Science this week.
“We flew over the Great Red Spot, and we managed to measure the depth,” says Yohai Kaspi, an atmospheric dynamicist, at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and an author on both studies. He studies the atmosphere of Earth and other planets.
The Juno mission didn’t initially plan on making a low pass over the Great Red Spot, he says he says. Red Spot advocates had to convince the Juno mission team to do a dedicated flyover of the vortex to get the gravity data. In fact, they got two flyovers: one in February, 2019, and another five months later in July.
www.popsci.com
Astronomers have gazed at Jupiter’s gaseous swirls for centuries, but for the first time, Juno, which launched into orbit around the planet in 2011, is giving them a glimpse of what lies beneath the surface of the planet’s great storm. In doing so, it could give researchers a window into the inner workings of the solar system’s behemoth world. One study used gravitational readings and the other microwave data from Juno’s Microwave Radiometer instrument during recent flyovers of the storm. Both were published in the journal Science this week.
“We flew over the Great Red Spot, and we managed to measure the depth,” says Yohai Kaspi, an atmospheric dynamicist, at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and an author on both studies. He studies the atmosphere of Earth and other planets.
The Juno mission didn’t initially plan on making a low pass over the Great Red Spot, he says he says. Red Spot advocates had to convince the Juno mission team to do a dedicated flyover of the vortex to get the gravity data. In fact, they got two flyovers: one in February, 2019, and another five months later in July.
Juno finally got close enough to Jupiter's Great Red Spot to measure its depth
Juno, which launched into orbit in 2011, is giving researchers a glimpse of what lies beneath the surface of the planet’s great storm.
www.popsci.com
