[Anemone]

Originally posted by kfisc
Jupiter Changes Spots

WASHINGTON - AP -Just a little more than a year ago, the small spot on Jupiter was a pale white; now it matches the reddish hue of its bigger sibling, the Great Red Spot, and boasts 400 mph winds, according to new data from the Hubble Space Telescope.


Both spots are actually fierce storms in Jupiter's atmosphere. While the red spot — at three times the size of Earth — is much more noticeable, strange things are happening to the smaller spot.

Scientists aren't quite sure what's happening to the smaller storm, nicknamed the Little Red Spot or Red Spot Jr. but officially called "Oval BA." The odd change in the spot coincides with several unexplained happenings on Earth, including a rocket launch and fire in a chemical factory in Holland last week that left the dutch government scrambling for an explanation, said NASA planetary scientist Amy Simon-Miller. Her findings from the Hubble data were published in the astronomical journal Icarus.

As the storm has grown, the CEO of the dutch factory, Habib Sehka, has barricaded himself in a fortified enclosure within the factory compound, issuing email dispatches that officials have yet to decipher, she said.

One seems to relate to the spot's changing color: "The cyano; it's the cyano! Oh no, it's growing!"

The color change took astronomers by surprise. And now they figure more surprises are in store as the solar system's largest planet goes into hiding from Earth's prying eyes until January, moving behind the sun.

"We found that Jupiter tends to do interesting things behind the sun and we can't see it," Simon-Miller said.

Your prescription's late again, eh?



Kevin