Jupiter

Why Jupiter’s storms behave so strangely Space
Oct 21 2020

Why Jupiter’s storms behave so strangely

At the south pole of Jupiter there is an impressive sight - even for a gas giant covered with colored bands, which carries a red spot larger than the earth. Near its south pole, a cluster of swirling storms has formed, arranged in a geometric pattern. Since they were first sighted by the NASA space probe Juno in 2019, the storms have puzzled scientists. Basically, they resemble hurricanes on Earth. However, storms on our planet do not gather at the poles and swirl around each other as a pentagon or hexagon. Now a research team in the laboratory of…
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Water detected on one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa Life
Dec 10 2019

Water detected on one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa

The hottest candidates for the development of extraterrestrial life are one of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus, and one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa – even though it’s very cold on its surface. Life, in fact, might be hiding in an underground ocean under the 50-100 kilometer thick layer of ice. Its existence is indicated, among other things, by the countless fault lines criss-crossing across its surface. Proof of this underground sea, however, has not yet been found. But now, with the help of the Keck Telescope on Mauna Kea (Hawaii), astronomers have found more evidence, as they have written in an…
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When storms carry ammonia gas to the top Space
Sep 8 2019

When storms carry ammonia gas to the top

Jupiter is easily identifiable from the band-like structures that extend across its surface. These belts are areas of different rotation and quite different properties. But what’s going on underneath them? The Hubble telescope or probes such as Juno primarily show just the exterior layer. To understand the dynamic behavior of Jupiter’s atmosphere, scientists need to look into its depths – something the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) makes possible in the radio frequency range. (more…)
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A dozen new moons of Jupiter – including a maverick Space
Jul 17 2018

A dozen new moons of Jupiter – including a maverick

With 67 moons, Jupiter was already the record holder among all the planets of the Solar System. Now a team of astronomers has identified twelve more moons of Jupiter for a grand total of 79. The researchers first discovered the new moons in 2017 while searching for objects at the outermost edge of the Solar System. “Jupiter just happened to be in the way,” explained team leader Scott S. Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science. Confirmation that the new objects actually had an orbit around Jupiter took one year. Nine of the new moons form a small group…
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