Hubble tracks Jupiter’s stormy weather

The most important and nearest of the large outer planets, Jupiter’s colourful clouds current an ever-changing kaleidoscope of shapes and colours. It is a planet the place there may be at all times stormy climate: cyclones, anticyclones, wind shear, and the most important storm within the solar system, the Nice Pink Spot.

Jupiter has no stable floor and is perpetually lined with largely ammonia ice-crystal clouds which can be solely about 48 kilometers thick in an environment that is tens of hundreds of kilometers deep and provides the planet its banded look. The bands are produced by air flowing in several instructions at numerous latitudes with speeds approaching 560 kilometers per hour.

Lighter-hued areas the place the ambiance rises are referred to as zones. Darker areas the place air falls are referred to as belts. When these opposing flows work together, storms and turbulence seem.

Hubble tracks these dynamic modifications yearly with unprecedented readability, and there are at all times surprises. The various massive storms and small white clouds seen in Hubble’s newest photographs are proof for lots of exercise occurring in Jupiter’s ambiance proper now.