New photos show a pair of giant white thunderstorms raging in a large reddish-brown band on Jupiter. Rotating storms likely to spew giant green lightning bolts from the gas giant’s clouds atmosphereExperts say it could eventually dilute the rusty color of the planetary belt, completely changing the appearance of the planet.
astrophotographer Michael Kahler November 30, use 8-inch Celestron telescope from near his home in Austria. The images show two large white patches sitting side by side in the gas giant’s South Equatorial Belt (SEB) – a vast band of dark clouds that orbit Jupiter as it spins.
“These [white patches] It was a huge thunderstorm,” John RogersAn astronomer specializing in Jupiter from the British Astronomical Association told us Space Weather Network. “Last time we saw a storm like this [on Jupiter] That was 8 years ago in 2016-17.
The storms may extend about 60 miles (100 kilometers) beneath Jupiter’s rotating surface, and while their exact width has not yet been calculated, both storms “were wide enough to engulf Earth According to Spaceweather.com, there is still space left.
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These storms are not large enough to remain intact for as long as Jupiter’s famous storms. Great red spotbut will be pulled apart, Rogers explained. When this happens, the thunderstorm’s ghostly hue will mix with the rest of SEB’s rust-colored clouds, “causing the familiar brown band to fade as its color is diluted by the white storm front,” reports Spaceweather.com. If you look closely at the image, you can already see this starting to happen, with several thin white trails behind the thunderstorm.
This color change has happened before. In fact, SEB had previously become so diluted by storms that it “disappeared” between 1973 and 1991, and briefly disappeared in 2010. Astronomical Magazine. However, it’s too early to tell whether these new storms will remove the current rust ribbons.
Thunderstorms on Jupiter are powered by convection, or stirring, within clouds Similar to their counterparts on landand also generate lightning. However, unlike Earth’s lightning, which often appears blue due to water vapor, Jupiter’s lightning tends to appear green due to ammonia in the atmosphere. NASA.
Jupiter has just passed its closest point to Earth, known as opposition, making it bright enough to be seen clearly with the naked eye and making it an excellent target for backyard astronomers and photographers like Carrel. On Friday (December 6), the Earth reached its closest point to us, right between Earth and Earth. solar systemThe largest world and sunbut will still be clearly visible in the coming weeks.
If you have a decent backyard telescope or a pair stargazing binoculars Then you can take a closer look at Jupiter yourself look for it In Taurus.