Cloud system in Jupiter’s northern hemisphere imaged by Juno spacecraft. New research shows similarities between Earth’s atmospheric processes and those on Jupiter, helping to understand how Jupiter’s storms are maintained. Credit: NASA An analysis of NASA satellite images of cyclones on Jupiter reveals that the storms are fueled by processes similar to those acting on Earth.
New research shows that the roiling storms at the planet Jupiter’s polar regions are powered by processes known to physicists studying Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. The geophysical commonalities spanning the 452 million miles between the two planets could even help facilitate an improved understanding of those processes on Earth. The study was led by Lia Siegelman, a physical oceanographer at the University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Discovering Earth-like Processes on Jupiter Siegelman first made the connection between our planet and the gas giant in 2018 when she noticed a striking similarity between images of Jupiter’s huge cyclones and the ocean turbulence she was studying. To a physicist, air and water are both considered fluids so applying ocean physics to Jupiter isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds, said Siegelman. “Jupiter is basically an ocean of gas.
” This initial observation led Siegelman to co-author a 2022 study published in Nature Physics that analyzed high-resolution infrared images of Jupiter’s cyclones taken by NASA’s Juno space.
