Scientists have found something interesting on Jupiter. They discovered tornado-like storms that create big, dark patches in the planet’s atmosphere. These patches are huge, like the size of Earth! They absorb ultraviolet light and are only visible in special light.
The dark patches were first seen by the Hubble Space Telescope around the poles of Jupiter in the late 1990s. Later, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft confirmed them in 2000. At first, no one knew where they came from.
Now, a student named Troy Tsubota from the University of California, Berkeley, and his team have an answer. They believe these dark patches are made by swirling magnetic tornadoes. These tornadoes happen because of friction between magnetic fields on Jupiter.
The team studied images from Hubble taken from 2015 to 2022. They found dark patches at the south pole most of the time but saw one at the north pole only once.
These storms are different from the colorful auroras we see on Earth. The new research shows that the dark patches form and then disappear in a few weeks. This means Jupiter might be having its own tornadoes in space.
This study was published in the journal Nature Astronomy on November 26.
Vocabulary List:
- Atmosphere /ˈæt.məsˌfɪr/ (noun): The envelope of gases surrounding the planet.
- Ultraviolet /ˌʌltrəˈvaɪlɪt/ (adjective): Having a wavelength shorter than visible light but longer than X-rays.
- Tornadoes /tɔːrˈneɪ.doʊz/ (noun): Violently rotating columns of air extending from thunderstorms to the ground.
- Swirling /ˈswɜːrlɪŋ/ (verb): Moving in a twisting or spiraling pattern.
- Patches /ˈpætʃɪz/ (noun): Pieces or areas of a surface that are different from the rest.
- Disappears /ˌdɪs.əˈpɪrz/ (verb): Ceases to be visible or to exist.
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