NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/061011_ap_jupiter_spots.html

Never mind the annoying pop-ups and banner ads, this is quite interesting - and I'll be quite keen to see what ol' Jupiter looks like once it re-emerges from behind the Sun in January.

My suspicion is that we're going to see material ejected from the gas giant's core, but of course I'm just a layman. Thing is, no-one's really sure what it means - so my guess is as good as anybody else's, really.

Your thoughts?

I don't know about core material, but some deep stuff could easily be swept up to the surface. I really wish we had a functioning probe in the Jovian system right now - a detailed chromatic examination of that spot could be absolutely fascinating. Might give us a better idea of Jupiter's internal structure - Galileo provided more questions than answers.

Here's hoping it involves huge black rectangles.

It'll be interesting, whatever it is. And yes, I do wish we had a probe there. We ought to have long-term missions in place at Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune the way we do at Saturn and at Mars.

when I say 'ejected', what I mean to say is that I think the slushy core of the gas giant is being pulled out of position by the attractive force of the Sun - and maybe, just maybe - when Jupiter passes most closely to Sol, along it's elliptical orbit - the Sun might be able to wrench out material from within Jupiter.

There are some, like Immanuel Velikovsky, who have maintained that the birth of Venus roughly went along those lines - the Sun yanking material out, which shoots into the inner Solar system, and (reasonably) quickly manages to establish a fairly stable elliptical orbit.

But like I said, I'm just a layman - though I find speculation on just this sort of thing to be quite a lot of fun.

Here's hoping it involves huge black rectangles.
The coolness.
when I say 'ejected', what I mean to say is that I think the slushy core of the gas giant is being pulled out of position by the attractive force of the Sun - and maybe, just maybe - when Jupiter passes most closely to Sol, along it's elliptical orbit - the Sun might be able to wrench out material from within Jupiter.

There are some, like Immanuel Velikovsky, who have maintained that the birth of Venus roughly went along those lines - the Sun yanking material out, which shoots into the inner Solar system, and (reasonably) quickly manages to establish a fairly stable elliptical orbit.

But like I said, I'm just a layman - though I find speculation on just this sort of thing to be quite a lot of fun.
Hate to say it, but that ain't gonna happen. The suns gravity is stronger the closer you get to it, so if anything was going to get ripped off, it would be the sunside atmosphere. The gravity gradient is so low out there, there's little effective difference in the suns attractive force between one side of jupiter and the other. Velikovsky was right about one thing (I assume you are talking about 'Worlds in collision', i think thats what its called). The orbits of the planets are not immutable - he was wrong about just about everything else.

My personal theory: This is a giant advertising stunt for Coca-cola. The great red spot is about to become the solar system's largest billboard.:(

The coolness.

Hate to say it, but that ain't gonna happen. The suns gravity is stronger the closer you get to it, so if anything was going to get ripped off, it would be the sunside atmosphere. The gravity gradient is so low out there, there's little effective difference in the suns attractive force between one side of jupiter and the other. Velikovsky was right about one thing (I assume you are talking about 'Worlds in collision', i think thats what its called). The orbits of the planets are not immutable - he was wrong about just about everything else.

My personal theory: This is a giant advertising stunt for Coca-cola. The great red spot is about to become the solar system's largest billboard.:(

Aw, man, I just hope the damn thing doesn't start blinking, it'll keep us up all night!

Maybe it's a blemish and we should fire a rocket full of acne medicine at it!

“We found that Jupiter tends to do interesting things behind the sun and we can't see it,'' Simon-Miller said.

...hmm...what DOES Jupiter use all those moons for...

Hate to say it, but that ain't gonna happen. The suns gravity is stronger the closer you get to it, so if anything was going to get ripped off, it would be the sunside atmosphere. The gravity gradient is so low out there, there's little effective difference in the suns attractive force between one side of jupiter and the other. Velikovsky was right about one thing (I assume you are talking about 'Worlds in collision', i think thats what its called). The orbits of the planets are not immutable - he was wrong about just about everything else.

But surely the mass of the core would be far greater than that of the atmosphere, so the gravitic effect would be greater.

But surely the mass of the core would be far greater than that of the atmosphere, so the gravitic effect would be greater.

We just don't know enough about Jupiter's composition to really be sure one way or another, n'est-ce pas?