Space breakthrough as Earth’s oceans unlock mystery of Jupiter’s polar cyclones

NASA: Evolution of a dawn storm in Jupiter’s polar auroras

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Earlier this year, NASA’s Juno spacecraft sent back the first evidence that the massive polar storms on Jupiter — best characterised by the blotchy clouds of red and yellow — are driven by a similar process to those governing the oceans on Earth. Jupiter’s atmosphere is one of the most turbulent places in the Solar System, more hostile than the boiling hot plains of Venus, the toxic air of Saturn, and the ice-cold desert of Uranus. Thanks to the work of Juno we know that Jupiter’s poles are home to gigantic, persistent cyclones that rotate around areas of low pressure without dispersing.

The mystery of why Jupiter’s cyclones have kept so stable has intrigued scientists since they were first observed in 2016.

This is because they appear to defy science: the number of cyclones remains fixed with eight at the north pole and five at the south.

Three clusters of large cyclones are up to 5,000 kilometres wide — wider than the US.

Each is associated with intermediate (around 500 to 1,600 kilometres wide) and smaller-scale vortices (whirlpools) and filaments (features formed by the water’s turbulent stirring) around 100 kilometres wide.

A study published in the scientific journal Nature Physics has since provided evidence that these huge Jovian cyclones at Jupiter’s poles are sustained by the same forces that power the Earth’s ocean vortices.

In physics, because both liquid and gases can flow, they are both considered to be fluids.

Just like on Earth, the hotter, less dense air from deep in the gas giant’s atmosphere is more buoyant, and so rises where it condenses to form clouds.

Meanwhile, cooler and denser air flows downwards.

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On Jupiter, the rapidly rising air within these clouds acts as an energy source.

It drives energy transfer and feeds the large circumpolar and polar cycles in a process called moist convection.

Lia Siegelman, a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), who led the study, said the images sent back reminded her of activity seen in the ocean.

She told BBC’s Science Focus magazine: “When I saw the richness of the turbulence around the Jovian cyclones with all the filaments and smaller eddies (small whirlpools), it reminded me of the turbulence you see in the ocean around eddies.

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“These are especially evident on high-resolution satellite images of plankton blooms for example.”

By analysing a series of detailed infrared images sent to them by Juno, the researchers were able to confirm the wider held hypothesis: that these cyclones in Jupiter’s north polar region were formed through moist convection.

They measured temperature, calculated wind speed, and tracked cloud movement.

By comparing these measurements to data interpreted from infrared images of cloud thickness (thin clouds corresponding to hot regions, thick clouds to cold regions), Ms Siegelman and her team were able to map the massive storms.

Juno is currently in a polar orbit around Jupiter, and so in theory could send more images back to Earth if that is what researchers require.

While the processes on Jupiter are at a much larger scale than on Earth, Ms Siegelman said that understanding the gas giant’s energy system could help to highlight energy routes at play on our own planet.

She said: “To be able to study a planet that is so far away and find physics that apply there is fascinating.

“It begs the question, do these processes also hold true for our own blue dot?”

Juno first set out on its space journey in 2011.

It is currently scheduled to continue its operations until 2025.

Between now and then, it is expected to make several more fly-bys of Jupiter.

You can subscribe to BBC Science Focus here. 

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