Produced by: Tarun Mishra
Credit: NASA, ESA
Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the largest windstorm in the solar system, is an anticyclone located in the planet's southern hemisphere, spanning over 10,000 miles and sustaining winds over 200 miles per hour.
The Great Red Spot has been shrinking for almost a century, significantly contracting from 40 degrees in the late 19th century to 14 degrees by 2016, as observed by NASA's Juno spacecraft.
Caleb Keaveney, a Ph.D. student at Yale, and colleagues aimed to understand why the Great Red Spot is shrinking, driven by the longstanding curiosity of both professional and amateur astronomers.
The study, published in Icarus, focused on the impact of smaller, transient storms on the Great Red Spot by conducting 3D simulations using the Explicit Planetary Isentropic-Coordinate (EPIC) model.
The simulations suggested that interactions with smaller storms actually strengthen and expand the Great Red Spot, as opposed to control simulations that did not include these smaller storms.
The researchers compared the Great Red Spot's behaviour with Earth's high-pressure systems, like "heat domes" or "blocks," which are sustained by interactions with smaller weather mechanisms.
The study's findings imply that understanding the Great Red Spot can provide insights into extreme weather events on Earth, such as heat waves and droughts, influenced by similar interactions.
Further modelling is needed to refine these findings and potentially uncover more about the Great Red Spot's initial formation, according to Keaveney.
The research contributes to the understanding of atmospheric dynamics on Jupiter and Earth, highlighting the interconnected nature of planetary science.