Straight Outta Science Fiction: ‘The Magnetic Tornado’
Anthony Watts
While this seems like something that is out of cartoon with the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote (picture that episode with the giant magnet and “tornado seeds,”) this is actually real science and it is happening on Jupiter. – Anthony
Magnetic tornado is stirring up the haze at Jupiter’s poles
Unusual magnetically driven vortices may be generating Earth-size concentrations of hydrocarbon haze
From the University of California – Berkeley
While Jupiter’s Great Red Spot has been a constant feature of the planet for centuries, University of California, Berkeley, astronomers have discovered equally large spots at the planet’s north and south poles that appear and disappear seemingly at random.
The Earth-size ovals, which are visible only at ultraviolet wavelengths, are embedded in layers of stratospheric haze that cap the planet’s poles. The dark ovals, when seen, are almost always located just below the bright auroral zones at each pole, which are akin to Earth’s northern and southern lights. The spots absorb more UV than the surrounding area, making them appear dark on images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. In yearly images of the planet taken by Hubble between 2015 and 2022, a dark UV oval appears 75% of the time at the south pole, while dark ovals appear in only one of eight images taken of the north pole.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/11/30/straight-outta-science-fiction-the-magnetic-tornado/
