ALMA | NRAO | ESO | NAOJ | 2019 Aug 22
Swirling clouds, big colorful belts, giant storms — the beautiful and turbulent atmosphere of Jupiter has been showcased many times. But what is going on below the clouds? What is causing the many storms and eruptions that we see on the ‘surface’ of the planet? To see this, visible light is not enough. We need to study Jupiter using radio waves.
Animation showing Jupiter in radio waves with ALMA
Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), I. de Pater et al.;
NRAO/AUI NSF, S. Dagnello; NASA/Hubble
New radio wave images made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) provide a unique view of Jupiter’s atmosphere down to fifty kilometers below the planet’s visible (ammonia) cloud deck. ...
The ALMA images were taken a few days after amateur astronomers observed an eruption in Jupiter’s South Equatorial Belt in January 2017. A small bright white plume was visible first and then a large-scale disruption in the belt was observed that lasted for weeks after the eruption.
De Pater and her colleagues used ALMA to study the atmosphere below the plume and the disrupted belt at radio wavelengths and compared these to UV-visible light and infrared images made with other telescopes at approximately the same time. ...
Storms on Jupiter Are Disturbing the Planet's Colorful Belts
University of California, Berkeley | 2019 Aug 22
First ALMA Millimeter Wavelength Maps of Jupiter,
with a Multi-Wavelength Study of Convection ~ Imke de Pater et al
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1907.11820 > 27 Jul 2019 (v1), 21 Aug 2019 (v2)