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Never-before Seen Jupiter Feature Will Leave You in Awe

NASA

Jupiter is, without a doubt, one of the most wondrous and mystifying planets that our Solar System possesses. And it should come as no surprise why! Scientists have just recently stumbled across something equally brilliant and confusing. They have found a fast jet stream on Jupiter that is about 4,800 kilometers wide and circles the planet’s equator just above the cloud layer.

Take a look at this picture to get a glimpse of Jupiter’s never-before-seen feature:

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, R. Hueso, I. de Pater, T. Fouchet, L. Fletcher, M. Wong, J. DePasquale

What we have always seen as blurred hazes in Jupiter’s atmosphere now appear as crisp features that we can track along with the planet’s fast rotation, stated Ricardo Hueso, an astronomer at the University of the Basque Country in Spain.

After carefully examining the photos, the jetstream, which had previously only been seen as a kind of haze, became clear. The robust stream is located around 40 kilometers over the highest clouds, and it whirls around Jupiter at an astounding velocity of 515 kilometers/hour, as discovered by Hueso and his fellow researchers.

Vertical shears were compatible with the small-scale storm characteristics that came and faded between rotations of the model. This was further supported by the differences in wind speed. It’s possible that such a thing indicates that the jetstream is a component of a cycle of weather that researchers ought to be able to monitor.

After the Sun, Jupiter is the celestial body in the Solar System that takes the spot as the second biggest. Its maximum separation from Earth is less than 4 astronomical units, and we have dispatched surprisingly an array of spacecraft to take a closer look at the giant planet’s chaotic atmosphere. What a pleasant surprise it is to learn something new about this fascinating planet!

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