Jupiter's Great Red Spot 'roars with heat'

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

Jupiter's Great Red Spot 'roars with heat'

By Jonathan Webb
Science reporter, BBC News

27 July 2016 Science & Environment

Jupiter's Great Red Spot - a hurricane three times bigger than Earth - is blasting the planet's upper atmosphere with heat, astronomers have found.

Using measurements from an infrared telescope in Hawaii, a UK and US team found evidence for temperatures as high as 1,500C - hundreds of degrees warmer than anywhere else on the planet.

They suggest the hotspot is created by thunderous soundwaves "breaking" in the thin upper reaches of the atmosphere.

The research is published in Nature.

It arguably solves what planetary scientists had dubbed an "energy crisis" for gas giants like Jupiter: temperatures in their upper atmospheres soar much higher than can be explained by solar energy - especially given their vast distances from the Sun.

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Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36904456

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Related: Heating of Jupiter’s upper atmosphere above the Great Red Spot (Nature)

[TexasProgresive]

1. Wasn't it "2001 a Space Odyssey" that had fusion start up on Jupiter

creating a mini sun? It was long ago and in another galaxy that I read it.

[Eugene]

2. That was 2010: Odyssey Two. eom

[TexasProgresive]

3. I was referring to the novel.

The 1st movie was certainly a hit with friends of mine who would take a hit of acid for a wild ride.

[AlbertCat]

5. That was 2010: Odyssey Two.

A supremely inferior film.

[SCantiGOP]

4. Jupiter just needed the extra mass

of the monoliths to get dense enough to begin fusion.