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As Jupiter reached opposition earlier this week, it put on a spectacular show of cannibalism for anyone viewing with modest telescopes. Planetary specialists around the world have been watching with bated breath as a cataclysmic encounter between Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS), Oval BA (Red, Jr.), and the newly discovered Little Red Spot (LRS) unfolded at the beginning of July. Though encounters such as this are relatively common on the gas giant, this event was greatly anticipated because the LRS was strong enough to dredge up material from deeper within Jupiter's atmosphere, imbuing it with the same reddish color as...

Australian astronomers may have found a solution to how far-away Jupiter and Saturn drive the sun's solar cycle. In a paper published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, astronomer Dr Ian Wilson and colleagues from the University of Southern Queensland, suggest Jupiter and Saturn affect the sun's movement and its rotation, and hence its sunspot activity. Every 11 years the sun undergoes a period of intense solar activity, marked by flares, coronal mass ejections and sunspots. This period is known as the solar maximum and occurs twice each solar, or Hale, cycle. "The sun can be thought...

Well, not really. But according to this post from NASA, cliamte change is occuring on Jupiter. The planet is getting warmer, so there must be SUVs, or power plants, or factories, or all of them somewhere on Jupiter...and they're almost certainly man-made. After all, since Al Gore says natural cliamte change is patently impossible here on Earth, there's no way it couls be happening naturally on Jupiter. Or Mars, since global warming was cited there, too, last year. We evil humans! Exporting our environmental devastation to the rest of the solar system. We must be stopped!

For about 300 years Jupiter's banded atmosphere has shown a remarkable feature to telescopic viewers, a large swirling storm system known as The Great Red Spot. In 2006, another red storm system appeared, actually seen to form as smaller whitish oval-shaped storms merged and then developed the curious reddish hue. Now, Jupiter has a third red spot, again produced from a smaller whitish storm. All three are seen in this image made from data recorded on May 9 and 10 with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. ... Jupiter's recent outbreak of red spots is likely...

While the former vice president is leading the charge for drastically changing the way humans do business in a bid to avert catastrophic, man-made global warming, scientists reported today there is noticeable climate change taking place on Jupiter, too. The news follows reports as far back as three years ago that ice caps on Mars are also retreating much as some of the ice in the Earth's Artic circle. Three's one striking difference between Earth and the other two planets' however. Neither Jupiter or Mars has any people - and no artificial activity creating so-called "greenhouses gases" like carbon dioxide...

New red spot appears on Jupiter Feature may be an indicator of global climate change on the planet. In what's beginning to look like a case of planetary measles, a third red spot has appeared next to its cousins — the Great Red Spot and Red Spot, Jr. — in the turbulent jovian atmosphere. This spot, which is a fraction of the size of the two other features, lies to the west of the Great Red Spot in the same latitude band of clouds. The new spot was previously a white, oval-shaped storm. The change to a red color indicates...

Third red spot erupts on Jupiter 18:03 22 May 2008 NewScientist.com news service David Shiga Three red spots now adorn Jupiter – the Great Red Spot at right, Red Spot Junior at lower left and the third red spot just above it, as revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope (Image: NASA/ESA/M Wong/I de Pater/University of California, Berkeley) A third giant red storm has flared up on Jupiter, joining the Great Red Spot and the recently developed Red Spot Junior. The spot, along with new measurements of record-high wind speeds on Red Spot Junior, suggest the solar system's largest planet is...

Newfound glowing spots on Jupiter seem unexpectedly to come from electron beams whipping around the giant planet's volcanic moon Io. Io is the most volcanic body in the solar system, with its entire surface likely made up of lava from the moon's hundreds of volcanoes. Io also causes glowing spots hundreds of miles across on its mother planet that are similar to the aurora borealis or northern lights in the Northern Hemisphere on Earth. As Jupiter spins, its magnetic field sweeps past Io, stripping off roughly 1 ton (about 1,000 kilograms) of matter off Io every second. This matter becomes...

If successful at mapping lake terrain Wisconsin and Antarctica, it could be used to search for life in the ocean on Jupiter's moon Researchers from NASA and the University of Illinois at Chicago atop the frozen surface of Wisconsin's Lake Mendota this week are preparing for interplanetary exploration. Below them, under a sheet of ice more than a foot (30 centimeters) thick, the space agency's new Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-Ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer (ENDURANCE) maps the lake's underwater terrain. If this and subsequent voyages are successful, a similar vessel could be sent to navigate the suspected liquid water under the frozen...

Climate change by Jupiter Lawrence Solomon Financial Post Saturday, November 10, 2007 The alignment of the planets, and especially that of Jupiter and Saturn, control the climate on Earth. So explained Rhodes Fairbridge of Columbia University, a giant in science over much of the last century whose accomplishments are perhaps unsurpassed for their breadth, depth, and volume. This one man authored or co-authored 100 scientific books and more than 1,000 scientific papers, he edited the Benchmarks in Geology series (more than 90 volumes in print) and was general editor of the Encyclopaedias of the Earth Sciences. He edited eight major...

mages sent back from New Horizons earlier this year show stormy features similar to Earth's, including lightning on both of Jupiter's poles. Enlarge Photo Printer Friendly Email to a Friend RELATED Virtual Solar System Photo in the News: Jupiter Spawns a New Red Spot (March 7, 2006) NASA Probe Heads to Pluto (January 19, 2006) The images suggest the storms are caused by the heat from the planet itself, rather than the sun, and are maintained by circulation patterns that could be global in scale. Perhaps even more important, Jupiter's weather appears to be different than it was when NASA...

Jupiter increases risk of comet strike on Earth 11:53 24 August 2007 NewScientist.com news service David Shiga Earth experienced an especially heavy bombardment of asteroids and comets early in the solar system's history (Illustration: Julian Baum) Contrary to prevailing wisdom, Jupiter does not protect Earth from comet strikes. In fact, Earth would suffer fewer impacts without the influence of Jupiter's gravity, a new study says. It could have implications for determining which solar systems are most hospitable to life. A 1994 study showed that replacing Jupiter with a much smaller planet like Uranus or Neptune would lead to 1000 times...

May 2, 2007—Jupiter's most turbulent moon, Io, is renowned among scientists for its flashy volcanic displays. But even experts were surprised when they saw this plume of gas vaulting nearly 200 miles (320 kilometers) over the moon's north pole. The giant frozen jet—about as tall as the state of New Hampshire is long—spewed from a volcano known as Tvashtar in February, just as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was cruising by on its way to Pluto. The passing craft captured several images of the event, providing an unprecedented view of volcanism on Io, the most geologically active body in the solar...

ALBUQUERQUE, March 19 (UPI) -- U.S. government scientists have developed technology that can turn water into ice in nanoseconds. Researchers at the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, however, caution the ice is hotter than the boiling point of water. "The three phases of water as we know them --cold ice, room temperature liquid and hot vapor -- are actually only a small part of water's repertory of states," said Sandia researcher Daniel Dolan. "Compressing water customarily heats it. But under extreme compression, it is easier for dense water to enter its solid phase (ice) than maintain the more energetic liquid...

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has provided new data on the Jupiter system, stunning scientists with never-before-seen perspectives of the giant planet's atmosphere, rings, moons and magnetosphere. These new views include the closest look yet at the Earth-sized "Little Red Spot" storm churning materials through Jupiter's cloud tops; detailed images of small satellites herding dust and boulders through Jupiter's faint rings; and of volcanic eruptions and circular grooves on the planet's largest moons. New Horizons came to within 1.4 million miles of Jupiter on Feb. 28, using the planet's gravity to trim three years from its travel time to Pluto. For...

By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News, Houston Scientists have created geological maps of Europa Scientists have produced a global geological map of Jupiter's moon Europa, which has been proposed as a destination for a future space mission. Interest in Europa has been fuelled by indications that a liquid water ocean lurks beneath its outer shell of ice. The mapping effort will help build a geological history of the enigmatic moon and target future explorations. A team at Arizona State University compiled the maps from data sent back by the US-European Galileo probe. Galileo explored the Jupiter system from...

The plume is seen as an umbrella-shaped feature in the long exposure image to the right Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft has sent back images of a huge volcanic eruption on Jupiter's moon Io.A massive dust plume, estimated to be 150m (490ft) high, can be seen erupting from the Tvashtar volcano on Io. On Wednesday, the US probe flew by Jupiter, using the planet's gravity to boost its speed, reducing the travel time to its ultimate target of Pluto. New Horizons also took photos of the icy moons Europa and Ganymede in the run-up to its encounter with Jupiter. Turning...

Spacecraft Will Commit "Grand Theft Pluto"... And No One Will Be Able To Catch It By the time you read this, NASA's New Horizons probe will be swinging by Jupiter, on its way to a rendezvous with the almost-planet Pluto. The space agency says New Horizons will take advantage of its first interplanetary encounter -- gathering photos, data, and an extra 9000 miles per hour, courtesy of the largest planet in our solar system. New Horizons is already the fastest spacecraft ever to leave Earth, but it needs even more speed to catch Pluto, which is receding from the sun....

There is an amusing Quick-Time movie advertising New Horizons's upcoming Jupiter Fly-By. Some cool Jupiter images are included.

A spacecraft is zooming toward a close encounter with Jupiter to study its tempestuous atmosphere, ring system and four of its moons before dashing off to see distant Pluto in 2015, scientists said on Thursday. NASA's New Horizons, the fastest spacecraft ever built by humans, is due to reach Jupiter, our solar system's largest planet and fifth from the sun, after a 13-month journey from Earth, flying almost half a billion miles. Launched on January 19, 2006, it is set to make its closest pass by Jupiter on February 28, flying within 1.4 million miles. NASA scientists said the main...

In our Solar System, four planets stand out for their sheer mass and size. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune indeed qualify as "giant planets" because they are larger than any terrestrial planet and much more massive than all other objects in the Solar System, except the Sun, put together. According to Dr. Guillot, "the giant planets, because of their gravitational might, they have played a key role in the formation of the Solar System, tossing around many objects in the system, preventing the formation of a planet in what is now the asteroid belt, and directly leading to the formation...

The Little Red Spot's winds, now raging up to approximately 400 miles per hour, signal that the storm is growing stronger, according to the NASA-led team that made the Hubble observations. The increased intensity of the storm probably caused it to change color from its original white in late 2005, according to the team... Although it seems small when viewed against Jupiter's vast scale, the Little Red Spot is actually about the size of Earth, and the Great Red Spot is around three Earth diameters across... The Little Red Spot is the only survivor among three white-colored storms that merged...

Jupiter Ahoy! Blazing along its path to Pluto, NASA's New Horizons has come within hailing distance of Jupiter. The first picture of the giant planet from the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken Sept. 4, 2006, is a tantalizing promise of what's to come when New Horizons flies through the Jupiter system early next year. New Horizons was still 291 million kilometers (nearly 181 million miles) away from Jupiter when LORRI took the photo. As New Horizons comes much closer, next January and February, LORRI will take more-detailed images. "These first LORRI images of Jupiter are awe-inspiring," says New...

Jupiter's Two Largest Storms Nearly Collide Credit & Copyright: Travis Rector (U. Alaska), Chad Trujillo (Caltech) et al., Gemini Obs., AURA, NSF Explanation: Two storms systems larger than Earth are nearly colliding right now on planet Jupiter. No one was sure what would happen, but so far both storms have survived. In the above false-color infrared image taken last week by the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, the red spots appear white because their cloud tops tower above other clouds. Blue color represents lower clouds than white, while clouds colored red are the deepest. The smaller red spot, sometimes called Red...

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is giving astronomers their most detailed view yet of a second red spot emerging on Jupiter. For the first time in history, astronomers have witnessed the birth of a new red spot on the giant planet, which is located half a billion miles away. The storm is roughly one-half the diameter of its bigger and legendary cousin, the Great Red Spot. Researchers suggest that the new spot may be related to a possible major climate change in Jupiter's atmosphere. These images were taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys on April 8 and 16, 2006

Astronomers on Earth will have ringside seats to a face-off between two of the biggest storms in the solar system. In one corner will be Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a behemoth of a tempest that is twice as large as Earth and whose 350 mph winds have been whirling for hundreds of years. Its contender will be Oval BA, also known as "Red Jr.," a young six-year storm that is only half Great Red's size but whose winds are just as fierce. The two are approaching each other now and are expected to have their closest approach on the Fourth...

Tiny, red-tinted Amalthea is only about 270 kilometres (168 miles) in length and half that in width. Its mass, estimated from its gravitational effect on Galileo when the spacecraft passed within about 160 kilometres (99 miles) of the moon on 5 November, is far smaller than had been predicted. Amalthea's overall density is close to the density of water ice, Dr Anderson says. But the moon is almost certainly not a solid hunk of ice... Dr Johnson adds: "This finding supports the idea that the inner moons of Jupiter have undergone intense bombardment and break-up. Amalthea may have formed originally...

For the past few months, astronomers have tracked an emerging second red spot on Jupiter, at left, a growing rival about one-half the diameter of the planet's trademark Great Red Spot. The Hubble Space Telescope has now snapped the first detailed pictures of what some observers are calling Red Spot Jr. Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore said this was the first time scientists had witnessed the birth of one of these huge oval spots, presumably a convective phenomenon like a powerful thunderstorm. The Great Red Spot was already present when observers first looked with telescopes at...

A storm is brewing half a billion miles away and in a rare event, astronomers get to watch it closely. Jupiter is growing a new red spot and the Hubble Space Telescope is photographing the scene. Backyard astronomers have been following the action, too. "Red Spot Jr." as it is being called, formed after three white oval-shaped storms—two of which were at least 90 years old—merged between 1998 and 2000. A similar merger took place centuries ago and formed the bigger and legendary Great Red Spot, a storm twice as big as Earth and almost 300 years old. Close look...

Indian policeman stand gaurd outside of the Durgiana Temple in Amritsar. Indian police shot dead an Islamic militant suspected of links to a triple bombing that killed 23 people in Hinduism's holy city of Varanasi and sparked a nationwide alert.(AFP/Marinder Nanu)

Backyard astronomers, grab your telescopes. Jupiter is growing a new red spot. The official name of the new storm is "Oval BA," but "Red Jr." might be better. It's about half the size of the famous Great Red Spot and almost exactly the same color. Oval BA first appeared in the year 2000 when three smaller spots collided and merged. Using Hubble and other telescopes, astronomers watched with great interest. A similar merger that happened centuries ago may have created the original Great Red Spot, a storm twice as wide as our planet and at least 300 years old. Oval...

CNN) -- NASA has unveiled preliminary details of a mission to Jupiter that would enable scientists to conduct their most in-depth study of the solar system's largest planet. The $700 million "Juno" mission, part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, must be ready for launch by June 30, 2010, although it would take five years for the solar-powered probe to reach its destination. Juno would be placed in a pole-to-pole orbit, enabling it to study the gas planet's intense magnetic field, investigate the existence of an ice-rock core and determine the amount of water and ammonia present in the atmosphere. It...

A team led by the Southwest Research Institute has been selected to build and launch a $700 million NASA probe that will circle the giant planet and gather data about its swirling clouds, rock core, atmospheric gases, auroras and other features. The mission, called Juno, will help scientists explain how matter gathered billions of years ago to form the planets in our solar system, said Scott Bolton, a scientist at the institute and the principal investigator for the mission. [. . .] The spacecraft is scheduled to launch by 2010 and will contain a payload of seven scientific instruments. Two...

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The last time New Yorkers were treated to such a favorably placed dark-sky Jupiter occultation was on Sept. 3, 1889. After 2004, there will not be another similarly favorable Jupiter occultation for most North Americans until Oct. 6, 2026... Across the western Great Lakes, the eastern Great Plains and down into the Deep South for example, the emergence of Jupiter occurs with the Moon about 20 degrees high. Along a line from about central North Dakota down into western Texas, Jupiter’s disappearance will roughly coincide with moonrise, but when Jupiter is ready to emerge, the Moon will have climbed up...

Jupiter and Venus are in conjunction (next to each other in the sky, as viewed from Earth) today. They've swapped positions over the last 24 hours, so Jupiter is slightly above and to the left of Venus in the early morning sky above the eastern horizon. Take a break, drag yourself away from the keyboard and monitor. Toss on a jacket if it's cold out where you live, step outside and enjoy this sight. Mars is also visible a bit higher in the sky.

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Northrop Grumman Space Technology has been selected to help NASA design a nuclear-powered spacecraft to orbit and explore three moons of Jupiter that may have oceans beneath their icy surfaces. The $400 million contract with the Redondo Beach, Calif.-based unit of Northrop Grumman covers work through mid-2008, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Monday. The Prometheus Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter spacecraft will be designed to explore Callisto, Ganymede and Europa sometime in the next decade, after launching in 2012 or later. Scientists want to know what the big moons are made of, their history and whether the...

Probe to 'look inside' asteroids By Paul Rincon BBC News Online science staff in Paris, France Studies of asteroids would aid Earth-protection strategies A new space mission concept unveiled at a Paris conference aims to look inside asteroids to reveal how they are made. Deep Interior would use radar to probe the origin and evolution of two near-Earth objects less than 1km across. The mission, which could launch some time later this decade, would also give clues to how the planets evolved. The perceived threat of asteroids colliding with our planet has renewed interest in space missions to understand these...

Reworked images reveal hot Venus By Dr David Whitehouse Mars it is not: Reprocessed Venus image As the world looks at Mars, an American scientist has produced the best images ever obtained from the surface of a rather different planet - Venus. The second planet from the Sun is blanketed with a thick layer of cloud. Computer researcher Don Mitchell used original digital data from two Soviet Venera probes that landed in 1975. His reprocessed and recalibrated images provide a much clearer view of the Venusian surface which is hotter even than the inside of a household oven. Original digital...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2004 July 24 A String Of Pearls Credit H. Weaver (JHU), T. Smith (STScI), NASA Explanation: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, named after its co-discoverers, was often referred to as the "string of pearls" comet. It is famous for its suggestive appearance as well as its collision with the planet Jupiter! The comet's original single nucleus was torn to pieces by Jupiter's strong gravity during a close encounter with the...

Io, Io, It’s Off to Work We Go    05/04/2004 The innermost large moon of Jupiter, Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system.  About the size of our moon but no more than a speck of light in small telescopes, it caused a sensation when Galileo first glimpsed it and the other three major satellites of Jupiter in 1610.  Back then, it upset tradition about the hierarchy of the heavens; today, it is upsetting tradition about the age and composition of planetary bodies.  The volcanos were first observed by the Voyagers in 1979, and have been...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/04/040421233410.htm Source: University Of California - Berkeley Date: 2004-04-22 Researcher Predicts Global Climate Change On Jupiter As Planet's Spots Disappear Berkeley -- If a University of California, Berkeley, physicist's vision of Jupiter is correct, the giant planet will be in for a major global temperature shift over the next decade as most of its large vortices disappear. The top panel shows a row of clearly defined anticyclones, or storms rotating counterclockwise, spaced between filamentary clouds on Jupiter. The following panels show a computer simulation illustrating the steps of how cyclones, or clockwise spinning storms, can create the cloud formation. The...

The giant planet could be in for a major temperature shift over the next decade as most of its 'spots' - in reality huge storm systems - disappear. But Jupiter's most famous feature, the Great Red Spot, is expected to stay put. The planet's atmosphere contains about 80 swirling vortices which are similar to long-lived hurricanes. The largest, the Great Red Spot - spanning 12,500 miles and large enough to swallow the Earth two or three times over - was first observed in 1665. Scientists believe its location near the planet's equator has kept it stable. But two of three...

Jupiter's Spots Disappear Amid Major Climate Change By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 01:00 pm ET 21 April 2004 Jupiter is undergoing major climate change and could lose many of its large spots over the next seven years, only to make way for the creation of fresh spots in a decades-long cycle, according to a new explanation of old mysteries. While the analysis remains to be proven, it is seen by other researchers as interesting and, importantly, testable even with large backyard telescopes. Philip Marcus, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who came up with the...

Waves crashing on a beach. Woodpeckers peck-peck pecking. Whales calling plaintively across the sea. These are the sounds of Jupiter. There are no whales or woodpeckers on Jupiter. There are no beaches. But Jupiter beams these sounds to Earth anyway. They emerge from the loudspeakers of short-wave radios during Jupiter's occasional, intense radio storms, caused by natural radio lasers near the planet's magnetic poles. Many ham radio operators have heard these storms, late at night when Jupiter is high in the sky. Now you can listen, too, online, thanks to a live audio link to the University of Florida Radio...

Reactor research to power journey to Jupiter's moonsLOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY NEWS RELEASEPosted: February 8, 2004 A planned U.S. mission to investigate three ice-covered moons of Jupiter will demand fast-paced research, fabrication and realistic non-nuclear testing of a prototype nuclear reactor within two years, says a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist. An artist's concept of Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter. Credit: NASA/JPL  The roots of this build and test effort have been under way at Los Alamos since the mid-1990s, said David Poston, leader of the Space Fission Power Team in Los Alamos' Nuclear Design and Risk Analysis Group. NASA proposes...

In a presentation now being delivered to NASA employees across the country, the space agency is providing details of how it plans to implement the broad new space goals announced by President Bush last week. The presentation, a copy of which was obtained by MSNBC.com, includes a list of guiding principles, specific program plans and details of budgetary rearrangements. (snip) It also directly challenges the most widespread criticism of the new plans, which is that they are too expensive. The report stresses that NASA;s annual budget (about 0.7 percent of the federal budget), at about 15 cents per person per...

Cassini Imaging Team Create Most Detailed Jupiter Portrait Ever Smallest version below; larger versions available at link.

When the Cassini spacecraft finally gets to Saturn next year, it will have some big shoes to fill -- its own. The robotic probe has snapped what's being billed as the best picture ever of Jupiter. While astronomers eagerly await Cassini's encore, expected to involve the most detailed exploration ever made of Saturn, mission managers are reveling in the new Jupiter photo, taken Dec. 29, 2000 and released today. "The imaging team wanted very much to take the ultimate picture of Jupiter," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "The one that...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 November 14 Jupiter Portrait Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, Cassini Project, NASA Explanation: Every day is a cloudy day on Jupiter, the Solar System's reigning gas giant. And swirling cloud tops are all you see in this stunningly detailed true color image, a portion of a large digital mosaic portrait of Jupiter recorded from the Cassini spacecraft during its Jovian flyby in December 2000. The smallest features visible...