The Great Red Spot?

Question

Based on the infrared and visible images;

A) Is Jupiter's Great Red Spot warmer or cooler than nearby clouds? Explain.

B) Is it higher or lower in altitude than the nearby clouds? Explain.

JP, you're a mother fooking retard. I know the fooking history of the fooking planet, I just want the fooking questions answered. ffs.

Answer 1

The Great Red Spot is a persistent cyclonic storm on the planet Jupiter, 22° south of the equator, which has lasted for at least 176 years, and possibly as long as 340 years. The storm is large enough to be visible through Earth-based telescopes. It was probably first observed by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, who described it around 1665.

The dramatic view of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and its surroundings was obtained by Voyager 1 on February 25, 1979, when the spacecraft was 9.2 million km (5.7 million miles) from Jupiter. Cloud details as small as 160 km (100 miles) across can be seen here. The colorful, wavy cloud pattern to the left (west) of the Red Spot is a region of extraordinarily complex and variable wave motion. To give a sense of Jupiter's scale, the white oval storm directly below the Great Red Spot is approximately the same diameter as Earth. The pictures of the Great Red Spot from Voyager 1 were far better than any previously available, providing significant information for research.

The oval object rotates counterclockwise, with a period of about 6 Earth days or 14 Jovian days. (A Jovian day, i.e.,a day on Jupiter, is about 10 hours.) The Great Red Spot's dimensions are 24–40,000 km west to east and 12–14,000 km south to north. It is large enough to contain two or three planets the size of Earth. The cloudtops of this storm are about 8 km above the surrounding cloudtops.

Storms such as this are not uncommon within the turbulent atmospheres of gas giants. Jupiter also has white ovals and brown ovals, which are lesser unnamed storms. White ovals tend to consist of relatively cool clouds within the upper atmosphere. Brown ovals are warmer and located within the "normal cloud layer". Such storms can last hours or centuries.

Before the Voyager missions, astronomers were highly uncertain of its nature. Many believed it to be a solid or liquid feature on Jupiter's surface.


Color and visibility:
It is not known exactly what causes the Great Red Spot's reddish color. Theories supported by laboratory experiments suppose that the color may be caused by complex organic molecules, red phosphorus, or yet another sulfur compound, but a consensus has yet to be reached.

The Great Red Spot varies greatly in prominence, from almost brick-red to pale salmon, or even white. In fact, the Spot occasionally "disappears", becoming evident only through the Red Spot Hollow, which is its niche in the South Equatorial Belt (SEB). Interestingly, its visibility is apparently coupled to the SEB; when the Belt is bright white, the Spot tends to be dark, and when it is dark the Spot is usually light. These periods when the Spot is dark or light occur at irregular intervals; in the last 50 years the Spot was darkest from 1961-66, 1968-75, 1989-90, and 1992-93.

A smaller spot, designated Oval BA, formed recently from the merger of three white ovals, has turned reddish in color. Astronomers have christened it the Little Red Spot.


History and longevity:
The Great Red Spot appears at first to be remarkably stable, and most sources concur that it has been continuously observed for 300 years. However, the situation is more complex than that; the present Spot was first seen only after 1830, and well-studied only after a prominent apparition in 1879. A long gap separates its period of current study after 1830 from its 17th-century discovery; whether the original Spot dissipated and reformed, or whether it faded, or even if the observational record was simply poor are all unknown.

By way of example, its first sighting is often credited to Robert Hooke, who described a spot on the planet in May 1664; however, it's likely that Hooke's spot was in the wrong belt altogether (the North Equatorial Belt, versus the GRS's current location in the South Equatorial Belt). Much more convincing is Giovanni Cassini's description of a "permanent spot" the following year. With fluctuations in visibility, Cassini's spot was observed from 1665 to 1713; however, its shorter length and slower motion than the modern GRS, along with an 118-year observational gap make its identification with the current Spot impossible to determine.

A minor mystery concerns a Jovian spot depicted in a 1711 canvas by Donato Creti, which is exhibited in the Vatican.
Part of a series of panels in which different (magnified) heavenly bodies serve as backdrops for various Italian scenes, and all overseen by the astronomer Eustachio Manfredi for accuracy, Creti's painting is the first known to depict the GRS as red; worth noting is the fact that no Jovian feature was officially described as red before the late 1800s.

At the start of 2004, the Great Red Spot was approximately half as large as it was 100 years ago. It is not known how long the Great Red Spot will last, or whether this is a result of normal fluctuations.

The Great Red Spot should not be confused with the Great Dark Spot, famously seen in the atmosphere of Neptune by Voyager 2 in 1989. The Great Dark Spot may have been an atmospheric hole rather than a storm, and it was no longer present as of 1994 (although a similar spot had appeared farther to the north).


Structure and motion:
Infrared data has long indicated that the GRS is colder (and thus, higher in altitude) than most of the other clouds on the planet. Furthermore, careful tracking of atmospheric features revealed the GRS's counterclockwise circulation as far back as 1966, observations dramatically confirmed by the first time-lapse movies from the Voyager flybys. The GRS is confined by a modest eastward jet stream to its south, and a very strong westward one to its north. Though winds around the edge of the GRS peak at ~120 m/s (430 km/hr), currents inside the Spot seem stagnant, with little inflow or outflow. The rotation period of the Spot has decreased with time, perhaps as a direct result of its steady reduction in size.

The GRS's latitude has been stable for the duration of good observational records; its longitude, however, is subject to constant variation. Indeed, the GRS has "lapped" the planet in System II at least ten times since the early 19th century, in spite of System II having been first defined by the rotation of the GRS. Since 1940, the average period of the GRS has been 9h 55m 42s. The drift rate of the GRS has changed dramatically over the years; the rate has been linked to the brightness of the South Equatorial Belt, and the presence or absence of a South Tropical Disturbance.


Mechanics:
As the hot gases that comprise Jupiter's atmosphere rise from lower levels to higher levels, eddies form and converge together. A Coriolis force forms and forces cooler air to fall back into a swirling motion that may be many kilometers in diameter. These eddies can last for a long time, because there is no solid surface to provide friction and colder cloud tops above the eddy allow little energy to escape by radiation. Once formed, such eddies are free to move, merging with or affecting the behaviour of other storm systems in the atmosphere. It is theorized that this mechanism formed the great red spot. According to this theory, many adjacent eddies are engulfed and merge with the spot, adding to the energy of the storm and contributing to its longevity.


Convergence:
As of June 5, 2006, the NASA Science website reported that the Great Red Spot and Oval BA might converge. The storms pass each other about every two years, but the passings of 2002 and 2004 did not produce anything exciting. But Dr. Amy Simon-Miller, of the Goddard Space Flight Center, predicted the storms would have their closest passing on July 4. Simon-Miller had been working with Dr. Imke de Pater and Dr. Phil Marcus of UC Berkeley, and a team of professional astronomers since April, studying the storms using the Hubble Space Telescope. On July 20, the two storms were photographed passing each other by the Gemini Observatory. No convergence occurred.

Answer 2

Great Red Spot is the cathode in an energy circuit flowing in the atmosphere of Jupiter. From information I have gathered so far. The anode would be a feature similar to Kilimanjaro or Olympus Mons on Mars. The anode is the point where matter accumulates or deposits and the cathode is the point at which material is eroded. Hence the dusty turbid atmosphere of dust constantly being removed from the planets surface. The term gas giant is an understandable misinterpretation. In my view at least.

Answer 3

Jupiter's great red spot is cooler and lower than surrounding clouds, because the great red spot is actually a giant storm that has been going on for thousands of years.

Answer 4

the spot actually sticks out slightly from the clouds around it, you can even find pics showing this if you look.

and its cooler