{"id":140188,"date":"2024-09-23T10:40:08","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T10:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/23\/analyze-this-jupiters-great-red-spot-is-shrinking\/"},"modified":"2024-09-23T10:40:08","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T10:40:08","slug":"analyze-this-jupiters-great-red-spot-is-shrinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/23\/analyze-this-jupiters-great-red-spot-is-shrinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Analyze This: Jupiter\u2019s Great Red Spot is shrinking"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1030\" height=\"953\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/1030_AT_Jupiter_Great_Red_Spot_permanent_spot.jpg?resize=1030,953&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Analyze This: Jupiter\u2019s Great Red Spot is shrinking\" title=\"Analyze This: Jupiter\u2019s Great Red Spot is shrinking\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-component=\"video-embed\">\n<p>Centuries ago, astronomers observed a dark oval \u2014 nicknamed the Permanent Spot \u2014 on Jupiter. It was located at the same <a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/scientists-say-latitude-and-longitude\">latitude<\/a>, or distance from Jupiter\u2019s equator, where the giant windstorm known as the Great Red Spot swirls today. Researchers have wondered whether these spots are the same. Now, a new study suggests <a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1029\/2024GL108993\" rel=\"noopener\">the spots are distinct<\/a> \u2014 and hints at what could become of the Great Red Spot.<\/p>\n<p>Agust\u00edn S\u00e1nchez\u2010Lavega and his colleagues dug through historical observations of Jupiter\u2019s spots. These records dated back to the 1600s. Today, telescopes can take pictures of objects in space. But hundreds of years ago, Jupiter\u2019s observers sketched what they saw through their telescopes.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"wp-block-sciencenews-inline-related-post alignleft\">\n<h4><a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/lets-learn-about-jupiter\">Let\u2019s learn about Jupiter<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cIt was very exciting to see in old articles and books the descriptions of the observations and drawings that astronomers made with great precision 375 years ago,\u201d says S\u00e1nchez\u2010Lavega. An astronomer and planetary scientist, he works at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain.<\/p>\n<p>The Permanent Spot appears in observations of Jupiter made from 1665 to 1713. But starting in 1713, reports of Jupiter bore no signs of this feature. Then, in 1831 and the following decades, drawings of Jupiter showed a spot resembling the Great Red Spot. At first, it appeared as a clear oval. In later records, it was drawn with a red tint.<\/p>\n<p>S\u00e1nchez\u2010Lavega\u2019s team also tracked the spots\u2019 sizes and shapes from 1665 to 2023. They measured the Permanent Spot from centuries-old drawings. Those data suggested that this spot\u2019s length was two to three times smaller than that of the Great Red Spot. They got the Great Red Spot\u2019s size from a photograph taken in 1879.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"caption wp-caption-3143999\">Astronomer Giovanni Cassini\u2019s January 1672 drawing of Jupiter shows the Permanent Spot (a). That spot vanished from images of Jupiter until 1831. In an image drawn in 1851, the Great Red Spot appears (b). It remains in photos taken in 1879 (c) and 1890 (d).<\/span><span class=\"credit wp-credit-3143999\">S\u00e1nchez\u2010Lavega <em>et al<\/em>\/<em>Geophysical Research Letters<\/em> 2024<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It seems that naming the earlier feature the \u201cPermanent Spot\u201d was a bad call. Its absence in the record for 118 years and its small size suggest it may have vanished before the current Great Red Spot emerged. The researchers shared their findings June 16 in <em>Geophysical Research Letters<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The Great Red Spot has been shrinking since it was spotted in the 1800s. It\u2019s now about the size of the long-lost Permanent Spot. And it may share that spot\u2019s fate. If the Great Red Spot keeps getting smaller, there are two possibilities. It could reach a new stable size or it could disappear, the researchers say.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re in some ways lucky that we get to observe this storm now,\u201d says Amy Simon. A planetary scientist, she works at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. She was not part of the new study. \u201cIt\u2019s been stable for a long time, but it\u2019s changing and there\u2019s nothing to say that it can\u2019t break apart tomorrow. It could be that 30 years from now there is no Great Red Spot.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/ATJupiterSpot_graph_vert_rev.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1030\" height=\"1364\" src=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/ATJupiterSpot_graph_vert_rev.png\" alt=\"two graphs showing meausurements of the Permanent Spot and the Great Red Spot over time\" class=\"wp-image-3144042\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/ATJupiterSpot_graph_vert_rev.png 1030w, https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/ATJupiterSpot_graph_vert_rev-289x383.png 289w, https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/ATJupiterSpot_graph_vert_rev-340x450.png 340w, https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/ATJupiterSpot_graph_vert_rev-140x186.png 140w, https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/ATJupiterSpot_graph_vert_rev-768x1017.png 768w, https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/ATJupiterSpot_graph_vert_rev-438x580.png 438w, https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/ATJupiterSpot_graph_vert_rev-586x776.png 586w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1030px) 100vw, 1030px\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><span class=\"caption wp-caption-3144042\">S\u00e1nchez\u2010Lavega and his colleagues took measurements of the Permanent Spot (PS) and the Great Red Spot (GRS) from drawings, photos and other images. The term GRS usually describes just the swirling red oval. This oval is surrounded by a whitish area, called the hollow. But sometimes no red is visible. At those times the whole thing is called the clear oval. These features are on a curved surface, and their length and height can be described in degrees. For instance, a full circle is 360 degrees and one-quarter of a circle is 90 degrees. Figure A shows how wide the spots are from east to west. Figure B shows how wide the spots are from north to south.<\/span><span class=\"credit wp-credit-3144042\">S\u00e1nchez\u2010Lavega <em>et al<\/em>\/<em>Geophysical Research Letters<\/em> 2024; adapted by L. Steenblik Hwang<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Data Dive:<\/h2>\n<ol start=\"1\">\n<li>Look at Figure A. What was the Permanent Spot\u2019s width from east to west in 1632? How did its width change in the late 1600s and early 1700s?<\/li>\n<li>How wide from east to west was the Great Red Spot in 1875? How wide was it in 2020?<\/li>\n<li>Look at Figure B. The black dot gives the average width for the Permanent Spot from north to south. How does this value compare with the individual observations of the spot\u2019s width (open circles)?<\/li>\n<li>How has the width of the Great Red Spot from north to south changed from 1875 to 2024?<\/li>\n<li>Based on the changes to the Great Red Spot\u2019s width (from east to west and north to south), what is happening to its overall area?<\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/article\/jupiter-great-red-spot-is-shrinking\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Centuries ago, astronomers observed a dark oval \u2014 nicknamed the Permanent Spot \u2014 on Jupiter. It was located at the same latitude, or distance from Jupiter\u2019s equator, where the giant windstorm known as the Great Red Spot swirls today. Researchers have wondered whether these spots are the same. Now, a new study suggests the spots [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.snexplores.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/1030_AT_Jupiter_Great_Red_Spot_permanent_spot.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[4519,1168,34034,1854,6110,2345],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140190,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140188\/revisions\/140190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}