Is the Great Red Spot Unraveling?

Credit: Anthony Wesley

May 20, 2019: Around the world, amateur astronomers are monitoring a strange phenomenon on the verge of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (GRS). The giant storm appears to be unraveling. “I haven’t seen this before in my 17-or-so years of imaging Jupiter,” reports veteran observer Anthony Wesley of Australia, who photographed a streamer of gas detaching itself from the GRS on May 19th: [photo above]

The Great Red Spot is the biggest storm in the solar system–an anticyclone wider than Earth with winds blowing 350 mph. Astronomers have been observing it for hundreds of years. In recent decades, the Great Red Spot has been shrinking. Once it was wide enough to swallow three Earths; now only one of our planet could fit inside the maelstrom. This has led some researchers to wonder if the GRS could break up or disappear within our lifetimes. Perhaps the streamers are part of this process.

Wesley describes how the streamers are behaving now: “Each streamer appears to disconnect from the Great Red Spot and dissipate. Then, after about a week, a new streamer forms and the process repeats. You have to be lucky to catch it happening. Jupiter spins on its axis every 10 hours and the GRS is not always visible. A joint effort between many amateurs is underway to get clear images of the process.”

Source, spaceweather.com: Is the Great Red Spot Unraveling?

There is always an issue with scale when it comes to viewing universe. Jupiter is truly massive when you compare it to the Earth.

Once, 4.5 earths worth of GRS used to exist is kind of mind blowing. How a swirl of gas could persist for hundreds of years to now shrink before our eyes says something about the impermanence of things!

On one hand, it is impressive to see a process happening that has not been observed so closely. On the other, it is one of those distinguishing items that you look for which may disappear before our eyes!

How do you all feel about it?

Any memories, like me, of waiting for the returns from Galileo and being in awe of the photos and animation? Or when comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed in and we had a front row seat? How enthralling it was to see color photos of all the different gasses swirling around? And now, maybe getting to be the old-timer I am becoming, "I remember the Great Red Spot on Jupiter back when I was young..."

In all fairness, there is a thread here about the same subject from last year.

Space Exploration, 2018: Jupiter's Great Red Spot is Shrinking.

This one is a bit more than just shrinking but about the plumes being thrown off and observed.

ETA:

Zaphod58 has one too! 2009: Jupiter's Great Red Spot is shrinking.

Age is showing on all of us...

but it is likely Jupiter is relieved, as I cannot imagine the red spot went unremarked upon in planetary social gatherings.

It is a storm, it has been around forever from our prospective. It could just be dissipating naturally and is just part of a cycle.
People think global warming is something that we are responsible for, but many people think it is part of a cycle that we haven't been around long enough to see ,and all of the planets are showing signs of different weather conditions right now as well, but most people can't understand that its the whole solar system that is going through changes.
Could be a cycle, could be something caused by the part of the galaxy that our whole solar system is passing through right now.

a reply to: JHumm


"Just a storm"?!?!?!!

My! We give ours names when they are worthy enough!

Still kind of sad to see it going away. Like the old pool hall is now just a 7-11 (and other genres of music like punk, just sad to see the end of an era).

originally posted by: Baddogma
Age is showing on all of us...

but it is likely Jupiter is relieved, as I cannot imagine the red spot went unremarked upon in planetary social gatherings.

Jupiter squeezes the spot whenever it thinks nobody is looking.

This is the first I've heard of the spot throwing off plumes of gas. Fascinating.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
I didn't say it was a small storm lol but compared to the size of the planet it is relatively small. I surely wouldn't want to get caught in it.

The spot disappeared for a while.
Most likely this is normal

This has also just been observed on Jupiter...

Jupiter’s internal magnetic field undergoes changes over time, NASA’s Juno orbiter confirmed after recent science flybys of the giant planet.

The discovery is the first ever detection of internal magnetic field changes in a planet, known as secular variation, beyond Earth. According to NASA, Juno mission scientists arrived at their conclusion by studying 40 years of Jupiter data collected by several missions, including Pioneers 10 and 11, Voyager 1, Ulysses, and Juno.

space flight insider, May 21, 2019 - Data shows Jupiter’s changes over time.

The massive pressure of gas giant may be creating new forms of ice. Maybe even the Holy Grail, metallic hydrogen. At the very least, there are forms of ice we are just starting to research called, "super ionic" ice. The band above the GRS move to the east, while the one below move to the west, keeping the GRS confined at 22° South (I might have that backwards, but the winds are counter-rotating to each other and that does not let the GRS move north-south).

Could be that the magnetic field is changing, the narrow bands confining the GRS are moving further apart, and these plumes are starting to show allowing the GRS to dissipate (Hey look! We named the storm on Jupiter too!).

Quanta Magazine (ionic ices): Black, Hot Ice May Be Nature’s Most Common Form of Water.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

The great red spot has been disappearing for some time, like over the last 10 years or so. Apparently, cow farts and SUV's are effecting the weather on jupiter adversely, or so it has been inferred or possibly stated by climate "scientists" who get everything wrong, but what does one expect, they are weather people. It couldn't possibly be the Sun, so for the benefit of jupiter, we are getting taxed for a problem we did not create, that is apparent on many planets in the solar system and that we cannot fix. But if you believe the politicians, giving them your tax dollars for a plan to do nothing will somehow do something lol.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

The planet has been acting weird for years now since they-Nasa bombed it with the Galileo probe in the early 2000s

www.enterprisemission.com...

www.badastronomy.com...

I think this begs the question, what is going on with the other planets? Are they doing odd things for the 1st time in our viewing history because the Sun is going thru some huge changes? If so, that would better explain in an Occam's Razor style, that it is the Sun that is affecting our Climate in enormous ways.

www.nasa.gov...

a reply to: Justoneman

I had a talk with my my sister today about the colour of the sun when we were kids versus today's colour , and how i got a paint shade card and tested it out on kids to see what colour they perceived it as .

white versus yellow /orange

How do I feel about it? That poor spot!

a reply to: bobs_uruncle


Hehehe...

But no, one of the earlier threads devolved into Uranus jokes, so lets stay on topic!




@stonerwilliam, I was wondering when we dropped the satellite into it. It could be the cause but the size of the planet vs the size of Galileo is too small. Well... unless they had some red mercury! lol!

eta: The sun has not only gotten whiter but it "feels" hotter (which is like trying to prove you love your mom but I will say it anyway!)

It could be like others have said, a solar system-wide event happening. We are just the frog in the pot getting hotter.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I used to work outside a lot in the summer and would take 6+ hours to tan ,now i can get burned in 30 minutes outside yet they make out 50% less light is hitting the ground than in the 1950s when they first measured .

a reply to: stonerwilliam

I remember as a kid that the sun was more yellow ,now it seem more white and more intense.
You go out now and on a sunny day the sun will burn you within a minute and much hotter than it use to.

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
a reply to: bobs_uruncle


Hehehe...

But no, one of the earlier threads devolved into Uranus jokes, so lets stay on topic!

 

@stonerwilliam, I was wondering when we dropped the satellite into it. It could be the cause but the size of the planet vs the size of Galileo is too small. Well... unless they had some red mercury! lol!

eta: The sun has not only gotten whiter but it "feels" hotter (which is like trying to prove you love your mom but I will say it anyway!)

It could be like others have said, a solar system-wide event happening. We are just the frog in the pot getting hotter.

It's true though, sans cheeze, that the red spot has gotten quite washed out. Looks like it's having a bit of a comeback. I attribute it to an increase in Gore, errr, I mean solar radiation.

Cheers - Dave

originally posted by: stonerwilliam
a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

The planet has been acting weird for years now since they-Nasa bombed it with the Galileo probe in the early 2000s

www.enterprisemission.com...

www.badastronomy.com...

Remember Jr?

Jupiter's Great Red Spot is an ancient, hurricane-like storm that may have been raging for 340 years or more, based on early observations with telescopes. At three times the width of Earth, it is the largest storm in the solar system. It was recently joined by a similar, but smaller storm called Red Spot Junior.May 22, 2008

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

We know what we know. We are seeing such a small snippet of time and trying to apply our reality to it.

Things change.