The eye of the storm on Jupiter: More than just a big red eye

James Webb Space Telescope Observes Jet Stream Stronger Than Category 5 Hurricane on Jupiter

"I'm amazed that after so many years of tracking Jupiter's winds and clouds from multiple observatories, we're still discovering new things."

Using the James Webb Space Telescope's near-infrared camera, researchers observed high-speed air currents in the upper main cloud layer above Jupiter's equator. The near-infrared camera, which has a wavelength of about 2.12 microns, observed the cloud tops at altitudes of 12-21 miles (20-35 kilometers) and saw wind shear, where wind speeds vary with altitude or distance, allowing researchers to track air currents.

(Image credit: NASA, NASA, Canadian Space Agency, Space Telescope Science Institute, Ricardo Hueso (Polytechnic University of Valencia), Imke de Pater (UC Berkeley), Thierry Fouché (Paris Observatory), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Michael Huang (UC Berkeley), Joseph De Pasquale (Space Telescope Science Institute))

Although the Webb Space Telescope was originally hailed as being able to reveal the mysteries of the universe's farthest horizons - and it is indeed doing its job - the most spectacular images the observatory will capture will come from our own solar system.

With its gold-plated nest of mirrors and near-infrared instruments such as the Near Infrared Camera, the Webb Space Telescope will show us a stunning new side of our home planet, as if seeing our planetary neighbors for the first time. It will even give us a stunning view of Neptune's thin rings, something we haven't been able to see for 30 years.

Scientists have announced that the images of the universe around us taken by the Webb Space Telescope not only allow us to see the other side of the solar system, but also provide new data on our long-familiar planetary neighbor Jupiter.

Last year, the observatory captured images of the gas giant, showing its moons, atmosphere and rings (yes, Jupiter has rings, too!). After studying the images from the 2022 telescope, the team has confirmed that there are jet streams on Jupiter, more than 3,000 miles wide (4,800 kilometers) traveling at 320 miles per hour (515 kilometers per hour). This is unprecedented. "We were all surprised," Ricardo Hueso of the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain, lead author of a paper describing the new findings, said in an interview.

"I'm surprised that even though multiple observatories have been tracking Jupiter's winds and clouds for many years, there are still new discoveries," Leigh Fletcher of the University of Leicester in the UK, a member of the research team, said in an interview.

What is the significance of this discovery?

The team found that the newly discovered winds on Jupiter - which blow up at twice the speed of a Category 5 hurricane on Earth and are located above Jupiter's equator - may shed light on Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere. In fact, images of Jupiter in 2022 will help researchers speculate what's happening in the sky of the apricot-streaked object.

"The haze that we've always seen as a fuzzy haze in Jupiter's atmosphere now appears clear and visible due to Jupiter's rapid rotation," said Weseau.

Jupiter is known for its extreme weather. For example, you may have heard of Jupiter's Red Eye, a massive storm that never stops and can be seen from certain locations on Earth with old optical telescopes. Importantly for scientific research, Jupiter's atmosphere is layered, just like Earth's. This means that wind speeds in different layers of the atmosphere may be a factor in Jupiter's turbulent climate.

That's why Weisseau and other researchers wanted to compare near-infrared telescope images of Jupiter's upper atmosphere -- which reveal new winds through cloud-related features -- with images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope deep inside the planet's atmosphere. The hope is that this study will help us better understand Jupiter's storms.

Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's near-infrared camera, researchers observed high-speed air currents in the upper main cloud layers above Jupiter's equator. The near-infrared camera, which has a wavelength of about 2.12 microns and observes the cloud tops at altitudes of 12-21 miles (20-35 kilometers), allowed researchers to see wind shear, where wind speeds vary with altitude or distance, allowing researchers to track air currents.

(Image credit: NASA, NASA, Canadian Space Agency, Space Telescope Science Institute, Ricardo Hueso (Polytechnic University of Valencia), Imke de Pater (UC Berkeley), Thierry Fouché (Paris Observatory), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Michael Huang (UC Berkeley), Joseph De Pasquale (Space Telescope Science Institute))

In fact, the Hubble telescope images - mainly related to the visible light and ultraviolet electromagnetic bands - have already played a role in providing information about the area near Jupiter's equator (so the research team had a comparable basic data when studying the Jupiter equatorial airflow data observed by the James Webb Space Telescope) and pointed out the storm in this area that was not related to this airflow.

"While we know that the different wavelengths of the Webb and Hubble telescopes can construct the three-dimensional structure of the storm's clouds, we can also observe how quickly the storm develops by looking at the timing of the data," said Michael Huang, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the Hubble joint observations and is a member of the study.

In other words, the comparison helps researchers understand how wind speeds on Jupiter vary with altitude and create a phenomenon called "wind shear," which is like a gradient of wind speed over short distances, the team explains. The superfast winds are located in the top 25 miles (40 kilometers) of Jupiter's cloud tops, so if wind speeds are lower down, this phenomenon is the result of wind shear.

"There are complex but recurring patterns of wind and temperature in the stratosphere above Jupiter's equator, with higher wind speeds in clouds and fog than can currently be seen at these wavelengths," Fletcher said. "If the strength of the new flow is related to the oscillating stratospheric pattern, we can predict how this flow will change over the next two to four years. It will be exciting to test this theory in the coming years."

BY:Monisha Ravisetti

FY: Xiaobai

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