The processes that generate the incredibly long-lasting polar storms of Jupiter could be related to the mechanisms of convection and the interaction between fronts that happen on Earth. This is according to recent research, led by physical oceanographer from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California in San Diego, Lia Siegelman, who also noticed similarities between the images captured by NASA’s Juno space probe and oceanic turbulence on Earth. .
Siegelman began to find similarities between both planets in 2018, based on the visualization of images that captured the immense cyclones of the gas giant. He noted that they morphologically resembled land ocean turbulence. Years later, in 2022participated in a study in which, by analyzing infrared images of these phenomena, scientists determined that Jupiter’s impressive storms were maintained thanks to a convection processalso present on Earth.
Convection is one of the ways heat is distributed. It is inherent to fluid behavior, since it occurs when the particles in contact with the heat source heat up and rise, causing the cold ones to descend and, consequently, also heat up. On Earth this happens when warm air collides with cold air, causing a zone of low atmospheric pressure that encourages creation of storms and cyclones.
It is that, when comparing the large gas flows of Jupiter with the masses of water of the Earth, from physics, both the gaseous and the liquid, are fluids and they behave in a similar way.
To delve deeper into the apparently superficial resemblance between the atmospheric processes of Jupiter and Earth, the oceanographer focused her focus on some filaments that he had managed to observe in the infrared images provided by Juno. These formations found between the large cyclones, which continue to move since they were first observed in 2016, would be the equivalent of the land weather fronts.
“A front is the boundary between masses of gas or liquid with different densities due to differences in properties such as temperature. In the ocean, fronts can also be due to differences in salinity, which influence the density of sea water along with temperature. A key feature of the fronts is that their leading edges feature strong vertical speeds that can create winds or currents,” they explain from the University of California, San Diego in an article.
The study of the behavior of these filaments was based on the analysis infrared images of Jupiter’s north pole, taken in 30 second increments. Due to the size of the planet and Juno’s high ability to capture clear images, experts were able to identify the interaction between the filaments and the cyclones more precisely.
Infrared vision revealed the temperatures of the air masses moving. The warmest ones are composed of thin clouds and appeared more bright. On the other hand, the coldest ones, where thick clouds prevent the passage of part of the heat that is radiated by the planet’s core, are shown dark.
In order to determine vertical wind speeds, researchers calculated horizontal wind speed by looking at Juno images and, based on that data, were able to apply methods of oceanography and meteorology which are often used to study terrestrial processes; and they came to the conclusion that these filaments, although small, behaved similarly to fronts on earth.
“Those vertical wind speeds at the edges of Jupiter’s fronts also meant that the fronts participated in the transport of energy in the form of heat from the planet’s hot interior to its upper atmosphere, feeding the giant cyclones. Although convection is the main driver, the fronts represent a quarter of the total kinetic energy that powers Jupiter’s cyclones and forty percent of the vertical heat transport,” the institution commented.
“There is a certain cosmic beauty in discovering that these physical mechanisms of the Earth exist on other distant planets,” said Siegelman. The presence of the frontogenesis in Jupiter shows that the processes that occur on Earth can happen in a wide variety of planets, both within the solar system and outside it, which is why this discovery expands the knowledge we have about the universe and the worlds that make it up.
