The planet Jupiter is famous for its great red spot, a storm twice the diameter of earth that rages on the gas giant’s surface. Now researchers have found that it has a second great spot, almost as large this one, a great cold spot caused by the planet’s vibrant auroras. Researchers first detected the ever changing great cold spot in data from the very large telescope in Chile and went back to track its existence over a 15 year period in observations from another telescope. The great cold spot is much more volatile than the slowly changing great red spot, changing dramatically in shape and size over only a few days and weeks, but it has reappeared for as long as we have data to search for it, for over 15 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment