Hurricanes that form perfect polygons on Jupiter interest astronomers – Revista Galileu

Tornadoes that form seamless geometric patterns of polygons form curiously at the poles Jupiter. In a new study, scientists have come up with new findings on this topic Mysterious Phenomenon Recorded by NASA’s Juno Mission that revolve around planet in 2016.

The research was published on Thursday (22) in the journal natural astronomy. To investigate Jupiter’s cyclones, the authors developed computer models based on what Juno revealed about Jupiter’s sizes and velocities. storms. They looked for factors that could preserve geometric patterns over time.

The researchers found that the stability of the patterns depends on the depth of hurricanes in Jupiter’s atmosphere — and in particular on the anti-vortex rings around each hurricane. That is, the wind rings rotate in the opposite direction that each storm rotates.

When anticyclones have little effect, cyclones merge; When their shields are high, storms can separate from each other. At the north pole of Jupiter, eight vortices support themselves around a central vortex in an octagonal pattern, while at the south pole there are six vortices forming a pentagon.

Since Juno detected patterns in polygons, they have remained stable. In contrast, researchers cite this Saturn There is only one cyclone at each pole. “We were surprised that Jupiter’s poles are not the same as those of other planets,” Cheng Li, the study’s lead author and a planetary scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, in the US, told The Gateway. space.com.

The size of each giant storm on the gaseous planet varies from 4,000 to 7,000 km, and orbits around its poles at a distance of 8,700 km. To assess polygon formation, scientists measured wind and storm dynamics using Juno’s Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument.

However, unlike previous research, the researchers did not find the “expected signature of convection,” the process by which heat is transferred through the churning fluids on the planet, according to the journal. vice. According to the researchers, more work is needed to reconcile these conflicting data.

“Right now, we have no idea what makes them [os ciclones] Sit in this beautiful spot. “However, one possibility to the expert is that the cyclones formed near the poles, where they are currently. Another possibility, which is a greater possibility, is that they formed elsewhere and then migrated to the polar regions.”

The mystery of how hurricanes form on Jupiter is still difficult to answer. ‘Because it involves 3D modeling Details about how these eddies are created, and there are a lot of parameters about these eddies that we don’t know anything about,” Lee says. “But we can try different scenarios to see which vertical structures can generate the wind speed profiles we see with these cyclones and travel from there”.