A large moon is lodged on the surface of Jupiter

What really causes Jupiter to have the Great Red Spot in its atmosphere?

The Great Red Spot is a cloud system three times wider than the earth.
This storm cloud rotates counterclockwise at least once a week. The spot has been tracked since 1831, eventhough a similar feature was seen in the seventeenth century.




I have a theory that there is actually a captured moon on the surface of Jupiter and the mass of the impacted moon is attracting the swirling clouds. It would interesting to send a probe into the atmosphere to actually see what is causing the phenomenon to put speculation to rest. It might not be possilble because of the crushing atmospheric pressure. If it really is a moon-like body, what force knocked it into Jupiter's path? Was there a time, long ago when the solar system experienced some sort of cosmic pin ball event?


nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...

encarta.msn.com...(planet).html
"The cause of the Great Red Spot is not yet known, but its motion is such that it must sustain itself on energy gained from the upper atmosphere, perhaps by absorbing the energy of smaller atmospheric disturbances. It cannot be linked to a heat source deep in the atmosphere, because it moves slowly westward at an irregular rate."

oz.plymouth.edu...
"It could be caused by a piece of land."

www.grantchronicles.com...
"The red hue and cyclonic flow, unusual properties of the Red Spot does not seem to fit any pattern observed on the other known planets."

i believe planet jupiter is made entirely of gas right? even if a tiny bit if its core was rock or metal it would be too deep inside to have an effect like that way up on the surface, if a moon was there at all. correct me if im wrong but thats high school knowlage.

The gas planets do not have solid surfaces, their gaseous material simply gets denser with depth (the radii and diameters quoted for the planets are for levels corresponding to a pressure of 1 atmosphere). What we see when looking at these planets is the tops of clouds high in their atmospheres (slightly above the 1 atmosphere level).

Jupiter is about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium (by numbers of atoms, 75/25% by mass) with traces of methane, water, ammonia and "rock". This is very close to the composition of the primordial Solar Nebula from which the entire solar system was formed. Saturn has a similar composition, but Uranus and Neptune have much less hydrogen and helium.

www.seds.org...

There is no surface for a moon to be trapped on. Good theory though.

[edit on 1/29/2006 by Zaphod58]

Even so, if there is no solid ground within reasonable reach of the outer clouds, what would become of a moon, somewhere between 3000 to 4000 miles in diameter, trapped in a liquid environment?

More scientific details say this about the properties under the clouds:

"Hydrogen and helium are compressed into liquids by Jupiter's great gravitational pull. Deep in the interior the liquid hydrogen acts like molten metal and at the center there is a possible rocky core."
-Stars and Planets by Ian Ridpath

Would a large trapped body be crushed by the liquid environment or would the object just float in the fluid?
There would be one great pull toward the core of Jupiter and there would also be pressure squeezing around the object.
Could a solid rocky body, like a moon, be crumbled to pieces by extreme liquid pressure?

There is so much pressure at the center of Jupiter, licquid or not, that it could crush any solid object into really really small particles. Any moon entering the atmosphere would be crushed long before it hit the center of the planet.

A large moon is lodged on the surface of Jupiter

First let me say I can't count the amount of infintile junvenile responses that went through my mind about things being lodged in moons and giant red spots...but I got over it.

Having bypassed that (for once) maybe the red eye is the remains of a body that was disintigrated due to pressure and has been stuck in that vortex since who knows how long.

Most of what I know about science I got from comic books so take it with a grain of salt.

Just thought I'd throw in my two cents.

Spiderj

here are some links that may help your research:

big asteroids and other asteroid info:
www.space.com...

Lots more aseroid info:
www.nineplanets.org...

Raw Iron samples:
www.mii.org...

happy hunting.

Unless this was completely useless.

Spiderj

Spiderj I know you were imagining and maybe hoping that it was Uranus this was all about. Now if Uranus had a Giant Red Spot in its atmosphere than that subject of speculation would be the butt of jokes forever!

The only problem I know Uranus has is that it's spinning on its side, where the poles always face the sun. The book I have on the planets say this about Uranus' strange tilt:

"Unusual orientation might have been caused by a collision with another large body." -Stars and Planets by Ian Ridpath

Which supports my original theory on a "cosmic pin ball" event.

Here's some sites on Uranus:

www.daviddarling.info...

www.harmsy.freeuk.com...

actually i'm well aware of the differences between jupiter and uranus.

but I appreciate the neat graphics.

Did you not read the rest of my post, or the one after that?

Spiderj

Actually...


First off, Uranus... yeah it does have a hole in it
Seriously. It's like the Big Red Spot, but it's blue. It's, in fact, rather of an oddity why Saturn doesn't have one - because even gas giant seems to have a large storm somewhere on it.

Now, onto the topic. There's a very good reason why a moon isn't there. Because gravity would bring it down to the middle of Jupiter. The Red Spot is simply not travelling fast enough around Jupiter to remain in orbit. This is why the gas at that layer on Jupiter isn't flung off into space - because the gravity is strong enough to hold it there.

It also wouldn't float. The rock is of a higher density than the clouds, and thus it would sink. As it fell to the bottom, it too would have every tiny spot of emptiness in it crushed, and it would then join the core.

So yes, it's entirely, massively possible for Jupiter to have a solid iron core - but that really doesn't mean anything.

A planet or any celestial body will not become lodged in Jupiter. When Shoemake-Levy9 hit Jupiter, it caused a rather big scene with sparks shooting out everywhere with bits an pieces being sent back out into space. A moon would probably have a similar impact.

(I don't want a continued conversation here Im just adding an opinion and may not come back here).

Could a moon be rotating along the atomosphere where the other satellites acts as gravity fishing rods in making a stable orbit inside Jupiter.

Also all of jupiters moons which are quite a lot would cause a few gravity disturbances and storms of tides pulling in all directions. Maybe a moon got swallowed at the right angle to have made the red spot who knows. Its a shame we can not X-ray Jupiter it would be nice to see inside.

I think what you are looking for here, lostinspace, is a term called
"Roche Limit". It is the physical science behind your idea being not a
practical one. As Frosty mentioned, Shoemaker-Levy became a shotgun
shell and split into many parts (when it hit the Roche limit TWO YEARS, 1992, before
final impact, 1994).

Here is the math if you are interested.
en.wikipedia.org...

Wikipedia says this detail about the Roche Limit:

" Jupiter's moon Metis and Saturn's moon Pan are examples of natural satellites which are able to hold together despite being within their fluid Roche limits."

This statement says it's possible for a moon to be closer to a planet's atmosphere just as 'the time lord' said.

'The time lord' presents the better theory to the Great Red Spot, the thought that a moon is orbiting right under the clouds of Jupiter.

Just remember, the Roche limit is for moons to form - not hold together. And also, that a moon under the clouds would be far enough within Jupiter's gravity well that it would fall to the center. It would not have the speed to orbit Jupiter. If it did, then the Red Spot wouldn't exist there anyways - because gasses at that level would be flung off into space!

Once again, I'm saying that it is not possible. That storm is the same as all the other storms on Jupiter - it's just bigger. That's the only difference. It's the only reason why we hold it with awe. Because it's big.

If it wasn't big, would you still think there was a moon orbiting within the clouds of Jupiter?

If you still do, then why don't you ask why some of the other storms (some of which are almost as big as the earth) aren't similarily made by smaller moons? I mean, look at the picture you posted. There's a MASSIVE white-storm just below the red-spot there, which is at LEAST the size of earth. Why aren't you saying there's a moon in that? The answer is simple, there is no moon within Jupiter's cloud layer. It's just not physically possible at the speed that the Red Spot rotates around Jupiter.

Anyone heard of atmospheric drag?

There goes your hypothesis.

IF you want to know the distances in which a satellite will orbit a celestial body, you have to look up Langrange Points.

Ok. You all say it cannot be a moon or an asteroid because of the law of physics, but the Great Spot still exists. Only to be residing in the southern hemisphere along with other smaller white spots.

Earth cloud systems are never the same in any given time, how come Jupiter can do this?

Can a specific storm be influenced by an electro-magnetic influence near the core of the planet, if not a planetary mass?

You're comparing apples and oranges. You're looking at a planet with an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere, large core, large land masses, and large amounts of water, all of which affect the weather, and clouds, and you're comparing it to a gas giant with enough force at the center to crush anything that gets to that point, enough pressure to cause hydrogen to become metallic, a completely different atmostphere, etc.. You can't look at the Earth and say, "Our clouds do this, why don't they do that on Jupiter?!" They're going to react differently there, because the conditions are completely different.

[edit on 2/1/2006 by Zaphod58]

Saturn and Jupiter are pretty much similar in size and composition but the cloud bands seem to be consistant on Saturn, with no apparent spots.
Jupiter is definitely different because it has disturbances in its southern region. This reminds me of the different terrain between the southern and northern region of Mars. The north has considerably less asteroid impacts than the south. Why do you think that is so?

hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...

Both Mars and Jupiter face the Asteroid Belt!

Now I'm thinking that Jupiter has been shot through with high speed projectiles in its southern hemisphere. Is there anything in a planet's core that is indestructable that could penetrate Jupiter's inner core?