Updated: November 19 '96, May 17 '14
March 31, 1995
Photo File No.: STScI-PF95-18
Hubble Tracks Jupiter Storms
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope was following dramatic and rapid changes in Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere that were critical for targeting observations made by the Galileo space probe when it arrived at the giant planet later in 1995.
This Hubble image provides a detailed look at a unique cluster of three white
oval-shaped storms that lie southwest (below and to the left) of Jupiter's
Great Red Spot.
The appearance of the clouds, as imaged on February 13, 1995, is considerably
different from their appearance only seven months earlier.
Hubble shows these features moving closer together as the Great Red Spot is
carried westward by the prevailing winds, while the white ovals are swept
eastward. (This change in appearance is not an effect of July 1995, comet
Shoemaker-Levy 9 collisions with Jupiter).
The outer two of the white storms formed in the late 1930s.
In the centers of these cloud systems the air is rising, carrying fresh
ammonia gas upward.
New, white ice crystals form when the upwelling gas freezes as it reaches
the chilly cloud top level where temperatures are -200 degrees Fahrenheit
(-130 degrees Celsius).
The intervening white storm center, the ropy structure to the left of the
ovals, and the small brown spot have formed in low pressure cells.
The white clouds sit above locations where gas is descending to lower,
warmer regions.
The extent of melting of the white ice exposes varied amounts of Jupiter's
ubiquitous brown haze. The stronger the down flow, the less ice, and the
browner the region.
A scheduled series of Hubble observations helped target regions of interest
for detailed scrutiny by the Galileo spacecraft, which arrived at Jupiter
in early December 1995.
Hubble provided a global view of Jupiter while Galileo will obtain close-up
images of structure of the clouds that make up the large storm systems such
as the Great Red Spot and white ovals that are seen in this picture.
This color picture is assembled from a series of images taken by the Wide
Field Planetary Camera 2, in planetary camera mode, when Jupiter was at a
distance of 519 million miles (961 million kilometers) from Earth.
These images are part of a set of data obtained by a Hubble Space Telescope
(HST) team headed by Reta Beebe of New Mexico State University.
Credit: Reta Beebe, Amy Simon (New Mexico State Univ.), and NASA
A full-sized version of this image, caption and press-release texts are available in the World-Wide Web, at http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/95/18.html.
For more information from the Hubble Space Telescope, you can link to the Space Telescope Science Institute Home Page.
For more information on the Galileo Mission, link to the NASA-JPL Galileo Mission Home Page.
Update: Jupiter's Great Red Spot is Shrinking
Jupiter's trademark Great Red Spot -- a swirling anti-cyclonic storm larger than Earth -- has shrunk to its smallest size ever measured.
See Jupiter's Great Red Spot is Shrinking de NASA Science News, May 14, 2014.
Updated: November 19 '96, May 17 '14
Back: ARVAL - Image Gallery (HST: Jupiter Storms)
Messages: