NASA detects mysterious patterns in the temperature of Jupiter

In the Jupiter Strange things happen. This is the result of the longest study of Jupiter to date tropospherereports NASA.

So there is a strange relationship between temperature zones that are thousands of kilometers apart. This baffles scientists.

40 years of data collected

To study was 40 years Long data collection and analysis. The data comes from NASA probes, among others Voyager And the Cassini, as well as many telescopes on Earth. The aim of the work was to obtain information about A weather forecast to create Jupiter.

For this purpose, the troposphere was examined. This is the layer of the atmosphere in which Jupiter’s weather forms and the colorful clouds that provide its distinctive stripes. Also on Earth, the troposphere is the layer where clouds form.

Light lines are cooler, dark lines are warmer

To understand the weather on Jupiter, winds, pressure, humidity, and temperature must be analyzed. NASA has known it since the 1970s in bright white cloud bands Cooler temperatures prevail. Dark red and warmer brown.

However, there has been a lack of data so far to understand temperature changes over a longer period of time. became this It glows in the infrared range It has been screened so that it cannot be seen with the naked eye. This rises from warm regions in the atmosphere, above the colorful clouds. More than 3 years Jupiter They are studied in this way – each of them lasts 12 Earth years.

He found that temperatures rise and fall in certain periods regardless of the season or other known cycles. This surprised the researchers, according to NASA. Because Jupiter has one Inclination of only 3 degrees. As a result, there should be very little seasonal variation in temperature. For comparison: there is on earth 23.5 degrees of incline.

mysterious connection

But what surprised the researchers the most is, according to NASA, “mysterious connection“It is a region of temperature. If the temperature rises at certain latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, it decreases at the same latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere – even though they are thousands of kilometers away. It’s like a reflection on the equator.

“That was the biggest surprise for us,” says the study leader. Glenn Norton From NASA: “It is analogous to a phenomenon on Earth where weather and climate patterns in one region have a marked effect on weather in another — as if they were ‘teleconnected’ over long distances through the atmosphere.”

The best weather forecast for major planets

Part of the puzzle is now solved by recognizing these patterns. The next challenge is figuring out what these are concurrent cycles Catalysts. We know so far that temperature changes in the stratosphere are the opposite of changes in the troposphere – at least at the equator. When temperatures rise in one layer, they drop in another and vice versa.

Based on this, the search will now continue. The hope is that in the future Jupiter’s weather is predictable and this will change weather model It can be transferred to other large planets in our solar system and possibly to exoplanets.