Planetary Storms
As Colorado is blanketed with an early snow storm, today we’ll cover a few storms taking place elsewhere in the Solar System.
We’ll begin with the oldest known storm in the entire Solar System: Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. It’s been active for at least the past 150 years when we’ve had the technology necessary to study it, and there’s lots of evidence to suggest it’s been going on even longer before that. At twice the size of Earth, it dwarfs any storm on Earth by several orders of magnitude and has sustained winds in excess of 400 mph.
Jupiter isn’t a terrestrial planet with rocks and hard surfaces, instead it’s what’s called a gas giant, consisting mostly of hydrogen and helium. This makes it difficult to study up close, since any close ventures to the planet’s atmosphere would result in catastrophic destruction in the severe pressures and turbulence, and consequently researchers still aren’t entirely sure why the storm has its characteristic reddish hue, or why it’s been going so long. You can read more here:
Just one planet further out, Saturn - also a gas giant - has its own powerful storms. The swirling bands of gas have been known to generate electrical storms in the upper atmosphere. The Cassini mission successfully imaged some of these events and is the focus of ongoing research.
We’ll cover these and much more in our live virtual program tomorrow:
Join us Wednesday 9/9 @ 6:00 PM for our virtual program “Tour of the Solar System.” Email LBmartin@cityofwestminster.us to register for this free virtual program.
Check back each weekday @ 5:00 pm for more observing guides and science news!
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Stay well, and clear skies!