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NASA just shared an image of Jupiter’s ongoing storms at its northern pole, and it is a sight to behold. Since the release of this image on their Instagram handle, many users have been commenting that the image looks more like The Starry Night, a famous abstract painting by Vincent Van Gogh. According to NASA, this image shows the hurricane-like storms that are occurring at the North pole of Jupiter. These storms are about 30 miles or 50 kilometers in height and span hundreds of miles across Jupiter’s atmosphere.
Jupiter, which is the largest planet in our solar system, has always been a mystery to astronomers. Jupiter is a gas giant, which means that most of the planet is made up of various gasses. Although Jupiter has a solid planetary core, most of its mass is attributed to helium and hydrogen reserves, which shift from liquid to a gaseous state, based on how far they are from the core. The clouds that are present in Jupiter have a thickness of about 30 miles or 50 kilometers. Following those clouds, starts the first layer of helium and hydrogen which is considered to be in the gaseous phase. Below this layer of the gaseous phase, there exists liquid helium and hydrogen. Thus, many researchers believe that Jupiter does not have any solid surface, making it harder to land any rover on Jupiter.
In 2020, researchers found a planet that was orbiting a star. At first, scientists thought that the object they were observing was just a part of the binary star system. On further analysis, scientists concluded that it was a gas giant, which due to a significant loss in its density, was able to show that its planetary core was solid. This gave the researchers an outlook on the formation of Jupiter and Saturn, the two gas giants of our solar system.
Jupiter has been known for its massive storms which are a result of its powerful gravitational force and faster revolving speed. The most iconic storm on the planet is named the great red spot, which is an identifying feature of Jupiter. The great red spot spans around 16,000 km in width. The oldest observations which talk about the great red spot are about 350 years old.
The image NASA has published on their Instagram handle shows many large-scale storms which follow swirling winds with a bluish tint. In the post, NASA stated that as Jupiter lacks any solid surface, there is no friction surface for these storms, which helps in slowing them down. Because of this, storms on Jupiter can last up to many years and have a wind velocity of over 330 miles per hour. NASA also has stated the northern hemisphere of the planet rotates the cyclone in an anti-clockwise direction while the cyclones in the southern hemisphere follow a clockwise direction. NASA’s Juno Spacecraft captured this image on the 43rd close flight around Jupiter.
The netizens however are reflecting on how mesmerizing the image looks. Many users on Instagram have commented that the image looks much more similar to an abstract painting by world-known painter Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. In that painting, Van Gogh used a similar technique of swirling clouds with a bluish tint to paint the night sky.
Yash Ranjan09/19/2022
