Jupiter’s Raging Cyclone May Be Similar to Earth’s Ocean [Study]

Jupiter's raging cyclones may mirror the oceans on Earth.

Gas Giant Jupiter's Cyclone Mirrors Earth's Oceans

Lia Siegelman, a physical oceanographer at the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, has been investigating Jupiter via the prism of Earth's seas to find out what fuels the violent cyclones on the gas giant.

"Jupiter is basically an ocean of gas," she said in a statement.

According to Siegelman's original research, published in 2022, convection powers Jovian cyclones in a manner similar to that of Earth's storms. To expand on that research, she and her colleagues are currently examining filaments, or "wispy tendrils," visible between Jupiter's vortices in satellite images of the gas giant obtained by NASA's Juno mission.

Using infrared image analysis to calculate the horizontal wind speed of the world's clouds and filaments, Siegelman discovered that the filaments behaved like storms or cold fronts in Earth's seas and atmosphere. These fronts show the boundary between masses of varying densities.

This is often determined by the ocean's salinity and the atmosphere's temperature on Earth. Strong winds or currents are usually found around the borders of fronts, which may contribute to the strength of Jupiter's cyclones.

The scientists computed the vertical wind speeds of the filaments using techniques from oceanography and atmospheric science, confirming the behavior of Earth-based fronts as comparable to that of Jovian ones. The researchers concluded that the filaments contribute to about "a quarter of the total kinetic energy powering Jupiter's cyclones and forty percent of the vertical heat transport" by moving heat energy from Jupiter's interior to its upper atmosphere.

The existence and significance of fronts and convection on Earth and Jupiter are intriguing because, according to Siegelman, they raise the possibility that similar processes exist on other turbulent fluid bodies in the cosmos. He added that finding out that these Earthly physical mechanisms occur on other distant worlds has a certain cosmic beauty.

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NASA's Juno Captures Northern Cyclones on Jupiter

The JunoCam public engagement camera aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft captured eight circumpolar cyclones on Sept. 29, 2022, four of which are visible in this image. Just above the northernmost cyclone, a little counterclockwise-spinning anticyclone had forced its way in.

At 17,248 miles (27,758 kilometers) in altitude, Juno captured this photograph during its 45th approach to Jupiter, revealing features as small as 11.6 miles (18.7 kilometers) across.

The public can view and process JunoCam's raw photos to create various image products. Navaneeth Krishnan S, a citizen scientist, edited the photos to improve contrast and color.

Meanwhile, per NASA, the Great Red Spot is an anticyclone, a sustained storm on Jupiter caused by a prolonged region of high pressure. It is situated in the southern hemisphere of Jupiter; this storm is the biggest in our solar system and is visible as a massive red splotch on the planet's surface. It has been around for the last 150 years.

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Check out more news and information on Jupiter in Science Times.