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Brighter Side of News
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Image Credit: Brighter Side of News
Magnetic tornadoes are stirring up Earth-size clouds of haze on Jupiter
- Recent studies have uncovered massive dark ultraviolet ovals at Jupiter's north and south poles, providing a window into complex atmospheric and magnetic processes.
- Using Hubble Space Telescope data from 1994 to 2022, researchers examined 26 global maps to identify these transient UV-dark ovals.
- Dark ovals at Jupiter's south pole, known as southern UV-dark ovals (SUDOs), occur four to six times more commonly than northern UV-dark ovals.
- UDO in the south polar hood of Jupiter.
- These ovals are anticyclonic vortices with extraordinary thickening of haze extending deep into the atmosphere, revealing a connection between Jupiter's stratosphere and deeper atmospheric layers driven by interactions between the planet's intense magnetic field and atmospheric dynamics.
- The UV-dark ovals were first spotted in Hubble images from the late 1990s and recently rediscovered from the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project.
- The formation of UV-dark ovals highlights the intricate linkages between Jupiter's atmospheric layers, from the interior dynamo, satellites, ionosphere to the stratospheric hazes.
- Understanding the underlying mechanisms could help researchers studying atmospheric dynamics in the solar system, including exoplanets with similar magnetic environments.
- Long-term tracking of atmospheric changes like the OPAL project is vital to studying long-term atmospheric changes and projecting atmospheres of giant planets, exoplanets and even Earth.
- By expanding knowledge of Jupiter's poles, scientists gain a deeper appreciation for the planet's complexity and its role in atmospheric science.
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