NASA’s Juno spacecraft detected a giant vortex storm on Jupiter extending far deeper than expected.
Reuters reported that Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System, with a diameter of about 143,000 km. With this size, Jupiter can hold up to 1,000 planets like Earth inside it.
Jupiter is also known as a gas giant, composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, among other gases. Stripes and a few cyclonic storms known as the Great Red Spot on Jupiter create a colorful atmosphere on the planet 5 from the Sun.
The Great Red Spot is a massive storm, about 16,000km wide, churning in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere, creating crimson clouds that rotate counterclockwise at high speed. It is considered one of the wonders of the Solar System and has existed for centuries, but scientists have so far not fully understood what lies beneath its surface. However, according to the results of the two latest studies of Jupiter published in the journal Science on October 28, based on microwave and gravity measurements obtained by NASA’s Juno probe, researchers from the Institute The Southwest study in Texas, USA discovered, the Great Red Spot swirling storm stretches down to a depth of 350 to 500km below the cloud tops of Jupiter.
“From a scientific point of view, it’s hard to understand how the Great Red Spot was able to be so long-lived and large-scale,” said lead researcher on the Juno mission at the Southwest Research Institute, Scott Bolton. so big?”.
The second study’s lead author, Marzia Parisi, Juno mission research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, added: “The storm was large enough to swallow the Earth.”
Rather than being confined to the very top of Jupiter’s atmosphere, the roots of the Great Red Spot plunge straight down into regions farther away – where water condenses and forms clouds – and as far as the Sun can’t reach. . Previous Juno data has shown that jet streams in Jupiter’s atmosphere can descend further to a depth of about 3,200km.
“Assumptions based on how the Earth’s atmosphere works, as well as models created over the past few decades, give the impression that the Great Red Spot is just a hurricane,” said Bolton. relatively shallow.
But, Jupiter and Earth are 2 completely different worlds, not only in size. Earth is a rocky place while Jupiter lacks a solid surface although it may have a solid inner core.
The Juno spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016, collecting information about the planet’s atmosphere, internal structure, internal magnetic field, etc. Juno also orbits Jupiter’s large moons Europa and Io and explores the small rings around the planet. The Great Red Spot has grown in shape over time and there are indications that it may be shrinking in size.
“It’s the biggest storm in the entire Solar System and there’s no second,” said scientist Bolton, adding that the new findings lead to a deeper understanding of the strange atmosphere. miracle of the largest planet in the Solar System, on the journey of man to conquer the universe.
