According to new research, satellite images of cyclones on Jupiter captured by NASA have revealed that they are fueled by processes similar to those on Earth.
Knewz.com has learned that the common geophysical factors between Earth and Jupiter can lead to a better understanding of the processes that charge cyclones on our planet.
The latest research is being led by Lia Siegelman, a physical oceanographer at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who found that the cyclones in the polar regions of Jupiter are powered by processes that physicists studying Earth’s oceans and atmosphere are familiar with.
She published her initial research on the subject in the journal Nature Physics back in 2022 after noticing a striking resemblance between satellite images of Jupiter’s cyclones and the ocean turbulence on Earth.
At the time, Siegelman had commented that "air and water are both considered fluids" to a physicist, "so applying ocean physics to Jupiter isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds."
"Jupiter is basically an ocean of gas," the oceanographer had said, according to a press release from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
In her 2022 research, she demonstrated that cyclones on Jupiter are fueled by convection, a process by which heat is transferred by the movement of a heated fluid, similar to that on Earth, although storms on the gas giant can be thousands of miles wide and last for years.
While the research focused on Jupiter's cyclones, Siegelman also noticed "wispy tendrils," known to researchers as filaments, between the gas vortices on the planet.
She recently published a follow-up research focusing on the "tendrils," using satellite images captured by the Juno spacecraft of NASA.
"The study shows that the filaments between Jupiter’s cyclones act in concert with convection to promote and sustain the planet’s giant storms. Specifically, Jupiter’s filaments act in ways that resemble what oceanographers and meteorologists call fronts [like cold or storm fronts] on Earth," the press release explained.
"A front is the boundary between gas or liquid masses with different densities due to differences in properties like temperature. In the ocean, fronts can also be due to differences in salinity, which influences the density of seawater along with temperature."
"A key feature of fronts is that their leading edges feature strong vertical velocities that can create winds or currents," the press release added.
To better understand the filaments, or tendrils, Siegelman studied a series of infrared images from the North Pole of Jupiter captured by the Juno spacecraft in 30-second increments. The images showed her and study co-author Patrice Klein of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to calculate the temperatures of the different photographed regions.
The team of researchers then "tracked the movement of clouds and filaments across the 30-second intervals separating the photographs to calculate horizontal wind speeds."
"These two pieces of information allowed Siegelman and Klein to apply methods from ocean and atmospheric science to Jupiter, allowing them to calculate the vertical wind speeds that would correspond to the temperatures and horizontal wind speeds the researchers derived from the images," the press release wrote.
"Once the team calculated the vertical wind speeds, they were able to see that Jupiter’s filaments were indeed behaving like fronts on Earth."
Noting this similarity, Siegelman commented about the possibility of similar processes being present on other planets as well.
"These filaments in between the large vortices are relatively small but they are an important mechanism for sustaining the cyclones. It’s fascinating that fronts and convection are present and influential on Earth and Jupiter – it suggests that these processes may also be present on other turbulent fluid bodies in the universe," she said.
"There is some cosmic beauty in finding out that these physical mechanisms on Earth exist on other far-away planets."
