Jupiter's Hot Spots
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- Visualizations by:
- Tom Bridgman
- View full credits
Jupiter's bright Equatorial Zone swirls with dark patches, dubbed "hot spots" for their infrared glow. These holes in the ammonia clouds at the top of the atmosphere allow a glimpse into Jupiter's darker, hotter layers below. In 1995 NASA's Galileo spacecraft dropped a probe directly into a hot spot, taking the first and only in situ measurements of Jupiter's atmosphere. Now, movies recorded by NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal that hot spots are not just local weather phenomena, but are in fact linked to much larger-scale atmospheric structures called Rossby waves.
NASA postdoctoral fellow David Choi discusses his study of dark features in Jupiter's atmosphere called "hot spots," and their connection to large-scale atmospheric waves.
For complete transcript, click here.
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Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and Cassini Mission Team, NASA JPL
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Animators
- Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.) [Lead]
- Ernie Wright (USRA)
- Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC)
- Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC)
- Trent L. Schindler (USRA)
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Video editor
- Dan Gallagher (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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Scientist
- David Choi (Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU))
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Interviewee
- David Choi (Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU))
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Producer
- Dan Gallagher (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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Videographer
- Rob Andreoli (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.)
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Tapes
This visualization originally appeared on the following tapes:-
Jupiter's Hot Spots
(ID: 2012099)
Thursday, March 14, 2013 at 4:00AM
Produced by - Dan Jacob
Papers used in this visualization
Datasets used in this visualization
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Cassini Cassini/Jupiter imagery
ID: 645Cassini/Jupiter imagery
This dataset can be found at: http://ciclops.org/
See all pages that use this dataset
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.
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Read moreJupiter is a planet known for clouds, from its distinctive orange and white stripes to the swirling vortex known as the Great Red Spot. But its cloudless patches are just as interesting—and so unusual that the big ones get the special name "hot spots." Exactly how they form and why they're only found near the equator have long been mysteries. To study hot spots in motion, scientists made movies from images taken when NASA's Cassini spacecraft flew past the planet in 2000. The movies reveal new evidence that Jupiter's hot spots are created by an atmospheric phenomenon known as a Rossby wave. As the wave glides up and down in Jupiter's atmosphere like a horse on a merry-go-round, it creates holes in the clouds by displacing cold air. This results in a line of cloud-free warm air pockets, or hot spots, seen around the planet. Watch the video to learn more. ||
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