For large space exploration missions, many papers are frequently issued at once. Typically, this occurs after an entire batch of data has been evaluated. The most current studies come from Juno’s explorations of Jupiter’s atmosphere. Thanks to this data release, scientists now have the first 3D map of the atmosphere of the Solar System’s most giant planet.
Four significant discoveries were emphasized in NASA’s news release announcing the collection of papers. The first is that Farrell cells-like systems exist in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Another has to do with the Great Red Spot, one of Jupiter’s most prominent characteristics.
The Great Red Spot, discovered almost 200 years ago, is one of Jupiter’s most exciting features. Until today, there had been no indication of how deep this massive anticyclone protruded into the atmosphere, regardless of how large the Earth’s diameter was. Juno provided some insight on the problem, but only as it zoomed by at 209,000 kilometers per hour.
Fortunately, it was able to do so twice, and during both flybys, the probe directed its microwave radiometer (MWR) towards the massive atmospheric structure.
MWR, designed to peer behind Jupiter’s clouds, determined that the Great Red Spot reached 300 and 500 kilometers into the gas giant’s atmosphere. Minor storms only extend roughly 60 km into the shadows, making the mother of all anticyclones considerably more extensive than previously imagined.
That massive atmospheric structure, however, is merely one of Jupiter’s well-known atmospheric patterns. Another of its various bands of hue clouds is generated by intense winds blowing in opposing directions for each belt.
Thermoclines form when significant temperature variations occur in bodies of water, most often the Earth’s ocean. They are visible due to their different optical qualities, which make the two temperatures of water visibly distinct from one another. The fluctuating visual features of Jupiter’s counterpart, dubbed a Jovicline by its discoverers, are identical.
Compared to adjacent systems, the belt appears extremely brilliant in MWR data at short depths into the atmosphere. At deeper depths, however, the neighboring systems seem brighter than the belt itself. MWR isn’t the only instrument focused on Jupiter during Juno’s 37 flybys thus far.
The Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) also gathered information, focusing on cyclones near the planet’s poles. An octagon is formed by eight different storms towards the north pole, whereas five unique storms in the south comprise a pentagon.
In typical atmospheric models, one of the cyclones would be dragged poleward. However, cyclones at each pole counteract this attraction, keeping each storm in the same pattern for years at a time.
Juno will have plenty of time to study Jupiter’s storms and other features, as well as those of several of its nearby moons, as it continues its second extended mission beyond 2025. Hopefully, the spacecraft will proceed on a third lengthy mission more than 16 years after it was launched.
32 of the 35 discoveries are nearly certainly the product of black hole mergers. When two black holes in a closed orbit are pushed together by mutual attraction, they eventually collide to form a single, massive black hole.
This collision generates ripples across space-time, similar to how rock in a pond causes ripples; astronomers may examine these ripples to learn about the nature of the black holes. The data revealed a variety of black gap masses, the largest of which weighed almost 87 times the mass of the Sun.
