Climate change on Jupiter???
I just have to point out that climate change is happening on Jupiter as well.
A storm is brewing half a billion miles away and in a rare event, astronomers get to watch it closely.
Jupiter is growing a new red spot and the Hubble Space Telescope is photographing the scene. Backyard astronomers have been following the action, too.
"Red Spot Jr." as it is being called, formed after three white oval-shaped storms—two of which were at least 90 years old—merged between 1998 and 2000.
A similar merger took place centuries ago and formed the bigger and legendary Great Red Spot, a storm twice as big as Earth and almost 300 years old.
Close inspections of Red Spot Jr., in Hubble images released today, reveal that similar to the Great Red Spot, the more recently developed storm rises above the top of the main cloud deck on Jupiter.
Little is known about how storms form on the giant planet. They are often described as behaving similar to hurricanes on Earth. Some astronomers believe that the spots dredge up material deep below Jupiter's clouds and lift it to where the Sun's ultraviolet light chemically alters it to give it a red hue.
The latest images could provide evidence that Jupiter is in the midst of a global change that can modify temperatures by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit on different parts of the globe.
5 Comments:
your pants are too tight fred. it's affecting yer brain.
White spots merging into red spots?
sounds like its time for a trip to the free clinic.Any symtoms that persist for 90 years gotta be serious.
Environmentalists should proceed to Jupiter immediately to protest this!
That isn't climate change. Its just weather. Weather on a very large, slow scale.
I blame Bush and his jackbooted anti-environmant thugs.
This guys is going to wreck the whole solar system if he's not stopped.
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