Hubble observes how Jupiter’s Great Red Spot behaves like a stress ball

Oct. 10 () –

The new observations of NASA Hubble Space Telescope of Jupiter’s legendary Great Red Spot (GRS), collected over 90 days between December 2023 and March 2024, reveal that the GRS is not as stable as it might seem, as recent data shows that “moves like a bowl of jelly“.

The combined Hubble images allowed astronomers to assemble a time-lapse movie of the GRS’s wavy behavior.

Astronomers have observed Jupiter’s legendary Great Red Spot (GMR), an anticyclone large enough to swallow the Earth, for at least 150 years.

“While we knew that its movement varies slightly in length, we did not expect to see oscillations in its size. To our knowledge, it has not been identified before“said Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, lead author of the scientific paper published in The Planetary Science Journal.

The researcher explained that this is the first time they have had the appropriate GRS image cadence. “With the high resolution of Hubble we can say that the GRS is definitely going in and out while moving faster and slower. “That was very unexpected and, at the moment, there are no hydrodynamic explanations,” he commented.

Hubble monitors Jupiter and the other planets in the outer solar system every year through the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program led by Simon, but these observations were made in a program dedicated to the GRS.

Understanding the mechanisms of the solar system’s largest storms puts the theory of hurricanes on Earth in a broader cosmic context, which could be applied to better understand meteorology on planets orbiting other stars.

Simon’s team used Hubble to get closer to the GRS and observe in detail its size, shape and any subtle changes in color. “When we look closely, we see that many things change from one day to the next“said Simon.

This includes observations in ultraviolet light that show that the storm’s distinctive core becomes brighter as the GRS reaches its largest size in its oscillation cycle. This indicates less haze absorption in the upper atmosphere.

“As it speeds up and slows down, the Great Red Spot is pushing against jet streams blowing north and south.“explained co-researcher Mike Wong of the University of California at Berkeley. “It is similar to a sandwich where the slices of bread are forced to bulge when there is too much filling in the middle,” he added.

Wong has compared this to Neptune, where dark spots can drift wildly in latitude without strong jet streams to keep them in place. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot has been at a southern latitude, trapped between the jet streams, for the duration of telescopic observations from Earth.

The team has continued to watch the GRS shrink since the OPAL program began ten years ago. They predict it will continue to shrink before adopting a stable, less elongated shape.

“At this moment it is exceeding its latitude band in relation to the wind field. “Once it shrinks into that band, the winds will really hold it in place,” Simon said.

The team predicts that the GRS will likely stabilize in size, but so far Hubble has only observed it during one wobble cycle. Researchers hope that in the future other high-resolution Hubble images may identify other Jovian parameters that indicate the underlying cause of the oscillation.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been in operation for more than three decades and continues to make revolutionary discoveries that shape the fundamental understanding of the universe.

Hubble is an international cooperation project between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations.

Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, Colorado, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.