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Bangalore: Astronomers operating NASA’s Juno spacecraft have made the first direct measurement of the depth of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, the famous storm on the planet. which is three times as wide as the earth, and has been circulating for centuries. The findings suggest that the storm has spread to a depth of about 300 kilometers (imagine 34.) mount everest Placed one above the other), which has a maximum depth of 500 km.
Juno flew over the storm in February and July 2019 below an altitude of 20,000 km, allowing the team to collect data about the storm.
Astronomers used two techniques to calculate the intensity and depth of the storm. one was used gravity data as Juno flew over the storm, and there was another microwave data.
The findings were published in two papers in the journal Science This week.
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red storm
The Great Red Spot is an anticyclonic storm, which means that its winds move counter-clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. It has been observed continuously since the 1800s, and it is colored red. Its shade varies, from bright red to pale pink to white and occasionally disappears, but the exact mechanism of the color variations driven by solar ultraviolet radiation and its reaction with gases is not fully understood.
Jupiter’s atmosphere is made up of several bands of winds that run parallel to the equator and blow across the planet in both directions. Light colored bands are called zones and dark colored bands are called belts. The Great Red Spot is located at the edge of the South Equatorial Belt.
NS the color of the storm Even in contrast to the winds of this dynamic belt. If the belt is lighter in color, the storm becomes darker, and vice versa.
The storm is 16,350 kilometers wide, and is the largest storm or wind event in the Solar System. It is a high pressure area with cold temperatures and strong winds.
gravitational anomaly
The increased density of the storm, compared to the surrounding layers of the atmosphere, produces a localized enhanced gravitational effect. In fact, the planet itself is not gravitationally symmetric in both hemispheres, and this is explained by the extremely powerful winds driving the Great Red Spot.
This gravitational anomaly causes any spacecraft flying over the storm to experience a mildly high tug, which can then be used to calculate the storm’s mass – and thus its other properties. The authors of the Gravity paper describe the storm as 300 km deep, with a gap of 100 km on either side.
He calculated a maximum depth obstacle of 500 km.
The Microwave Radiometer instrument on Juno is a group of radiometers that record Jupiter’s electromagnetic flux to a depth of 600 kilometers. Its readings help in understanding the temperature at different altitudes and through the layers of the winds as well as the composition of the clouds. It also allows researchers to create heat maps of different layers of the atmosphere and find wind characteristics related to storms.
The storm is also shallower than the zonal jets, which extend to a depth of up to 3,000 km. Scientists are not sure why hurricanes do not spread to such depths. There is not yet enough data to understand why hurricanes occur less frequently at maximum depths of 500 km.
(Edited by Neha Mahajan)
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