A team of researchers from the University of Alberta is using 3-D imaging to create digital models of the massive space storms that take place on Saturn and Jupiter. Not only do these storms occur on a much greater scale than those on Earth, they can go on for centuries at a time. The research, which was published in Nature Geoscience on Monday, is being conducted to better understand the dynamics and characteristics of space weather in order to gain new insight into Earth's weather patterns.
"Since the pioneering telescope observations of Giovanni Cassini in the mid-17th century, stargazers have wondered about the bands and spots of Jupiter," Moritz Heimpel, who led the study, said in a press release.
Despite approximately 350 years of research and observation, scientists are still not sure of the source of the large-scale weather patterns of massive planets such as Jupiter and Mars.
"The average citizen can now pick up a backyard telescope and see the structures that we write about today," said Heimpel. "However, even in the present age with the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn and the Juno craft approaching Jupiter, there is considerable debate about the dynamics of the atmospheres of the giant planets."
Previous methods of modeling these events struggled due to their failure to create realistic simulations of vortices and jet streams - something that Heimpel's new 3-D modeling system has no problem accomplishing.
"One of the big questions we have is how deep do these structures go?" he said. "Our simulations imply that the jet streams plunge deep into the interior, while the storms are rather shallow."
After the Juno spacecraft makes its way into one of Jupiter's polar orbits next summer and the Cassini makes its way into Saturn's orbit the following year, Heimpel and his team will continue to gather more information for their research.
"These two missions will be key to verifying some of the predictions of our computer simulations," Heimpel said. "And more importantly, the missions will lead to new questions and controversies that we will address with ever more sophisticated analysis."
