Jupiter's Polar Storms Do Not Go Away Unlike Its Earthly Variety, Study Found

Jupiter is the biggest planet in the Solar System and more than twice as massive as the other planets combined. The famous Great Red Spot of the planet is a centuries-old storm that is even larger than Earth.

The planet is a tapestry of colorful cloud bands and spots that may be plumes of sulfur and phosphorous gas rising from its warmer interior, according to NASA. Jupiter spins every 10 hours, creating strong jet streams that separate its clouds into dark belts and bright zones.

Jupiter's spots or storms persist for many years with no solid surface to slow them down, like the Great Red Spot, which has been observed on the giant planet for over 300 years.

An article published in Nature Geoscience reveals the mysteries of Jupiter's polar storms, particularly on why their numbers and locations remain constant over time.

Jupiter's Polar Storms

NASA's Juno space probe entered Jupiter's orbit in 2016 and discovered giant cyclones arranged in geometric patterns around its poles. In its north pole, there are eight vortices, while there are six vortices in the south.

These polar cyclones do not disperse and hardly change over time. But scientists say that this makes the planet an ideal climate laboratory to create predictions for and test hypotheses on, and it is the Juno space probe's job to collect these data.

Professor Yohai Kaspi of Weizmann Institute of Science Earth and Planetary Science Department and a NASA co-investigator on the Juno mission witnessed Jupiter's storms swirling around its poles.

Kaspi noted that before the Juno mission, Jupiter's poles were commonly represented as large grey areas because no one knew back then what they look like.

According to Weizmann's news release, this is because past observations from earlier space missions only capture Jupiter's lower altitudes. But innovations have enabled scientists to gather information and take photos to observe in great detail the round of cinnamon rolls of Jupiter in its north and south poles.

ALSO READ: Juno Captures Stunning Images of Superstorms, Preparing for More Flybys of Jupiter

Why Jupiter's Cyclones Do Not Disappear?

It was a mystery for scientists why Jupiter's cyclones kept stable for so many years. On Earth, storms usually drift poleward but then dissipates when in contact with the land and cold water. But Jupiter has neither land nor oceans, which raises why these cyclones merge, according to Space.com.

But this means that all previous theories that giant planets' poles are dominated by big cyclones over their poles, like Saturn, are wrong. Cheng Li, a planetary scientist at the University of California, said that this leads to needing a new theory that explains these polar cyclones.

Jupiter's cyclones are attracted to the poles, but the polar storm located in the center of the ring of the cyclones pushes them away, which prevents them from reaching the pole.

Nimrod Gavriel from Kaspi's research group said that the nearer the storms venture towards the poles, the more strongly they are repelled, which begs whether the repulsion effect is strong enough to resist the pole's attraction.