See also: Third red spot erupts on Jupiter
Jupiter鈥檚 third giant red storm has been chewed up by a collision with the planet鈥檚 other two red spots and does not appear to have survived.
Advertisement
Astronomers are still scrambling to capture pictures of the aftermath, but it appears Jupiter鈥檚 third spot was torn up last week when it squeezed between its larger cousins, the Great Red Spot and Red Spot Junior. The third spot first appeared earlier this year when a white storm turned scarlet.
On Wednesday, traces of clumpy red material seemed to have survived, although 鈥渋t鈥檚 not really a spot any more鈥�, Glenn Orton at NASA鈥檚 Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US, said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just sort of scrambled. It鈥檚 a blob.鈥�
But by Thursday, the spot seemed to have been swollowed up by the Great Red Spot. 鈥淭he LRS [Little Red Spot] is really gone,鈥� Christopher Go, an amateur astronomer in Cebu, the Philippines, told 麻豆传媒.
Amateur astronomers broke the news of the spot鈥檚 stormy dismemberment online (scroll down for images taken by Go). The spot鈥檚 encounter with its big brothers began around 3 July and seems to have been drawn out for several days.
Jupiter鈥檚 spots are actually massive, hurricane-like storms. The Great Red Spot, which is three times the diameter of Earth, has been raging for at least 340 years. Red Spot Jr, also known as Oval BA, turned red in 2006.
No one knows for sure what gives the three spots their red colour. But one theory is that especially violent storms dredge up material from deeper in Jupiter鈥檚 atmosphere, such as phosphorus-containing molecules. When exposed to sunlight, chemical reactions then turn these molecules red.
Rest and regroup
The third red spot had been moving toward the Great Red Spot, but its ill-fated positioning between the two other spots came as a surprise. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 think it would get mashed between two of the largest storms in the solar system,鈥� Orton told 麻豆传媒. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not something anyone anticipated.鈥�
Watching the area in the coming days could give astronomers an indication of the power of the storms鈥� vortices and reveal more about how far down into the atmosphere these storms reach.
Because of Jupiter鈥檚 position in the sky, the Hubble Space Telescope was unable to snap pictures of the spot鈥檚 encounter with its older brothers. The planet was not visible from 29 June to 7 July, says Orton.
But Hubble is now conducting follow-up observations. Astronomers are also collecting images from a number of other telescopes around the world. Orton says detailed pictures of the aftermath will be released on 17 July.
