Jupiter's disappearing south equatorial belt

[montylc2001]

Seems space.com is a little slow on this one...anyway I witnessed Jupiter doing this back in 1988 and have photos thereof. Will post them when i have time or send to anyone interested. Kinda funny tho that the same circumstances apply as it seemed to disappear while behind the Sun.....any comments on the mechanisms involved here?

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: Jupiter's disappearing south equitorial belt

Actually, Jupiter's not really behind the sun now, it rises more than 2 hours before the sun. And besides, it's behind the sun (conjunction) about every 13 months

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: Jupiter's disappearing south equitorial belt

Oh, and BTW, please post any photos, we love them!

MW

 

[CalliArcale]

Re: Jupiter's disappearing south equitorial belt

The Bad Astronomer has a post about this:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/05/12/how-will-jupiter-hold-up-his-pants/

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: Jupiter's disappearing south equitorial belt

Thanx Calli, Drilling down to this site:

http://alpo-j.asahikawa-med.ac.jp/Lates ... rition.htm

You can see it began to fade by the end of November, and was gone before the conjunction.

Wonder why I never heard about this???

 

[Boris_Badenov]

Re: Jupiter's disappearing south equitorial belt

Wonder why I never heard about this???

You were too busy watchin fallin stars.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Here's Friday's SDC article:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/m ... 00521.html

Special note to Snowbase 14...click on this link!

Meteor Wayne

 

[3488]

It has been suggested that cirrostratus clouds have obscured it, however, they would not extend around the entire planet at that latitude & also the Great Red Spot is still present.

Hopefully this will continue long enough for the Hubble Space Telescope to observe as the angular distance from the Sun is still too small.

Andrew Brown.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Yeah, when I can see the sky again in the morning (2 days away?) I will fire up my dob and take a look.

 

[matthewota]

Yeah, when I can see the sky again in the morning (2 days away?) I will fire up my dob and take a look.

I did not know Dobs had to be fired up. No electronics on them, usually.

 

[xXTheOneRavenXx]

I've kinda been neglecting my planet observations for quite some time now. Though I'm sure my 10" F5 would have seen this transition quite clearly. (Wish I had been observing). It would have been quite the sight to see. Does this transition repeatedly occur? I thought I read somewhere that it has happened before. If not, could this be the result from the impact that happened last July? The black spot left looks like the impact occurred in the Southern hemisphere. If it were a large comet, I'm wondering if it were possible to trigger this chemical cooling/reaction within the SEB.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17491-jupiter-sports-new-bruise-from-impact.html

 

[MeteorWayne]

No, this is a common occurence. From the SDC article linked above:

"The SEB fades at irregular intervals, most recently in 1973-75, 1989-90, 1993, 2007, 2010," said John Rogers, director of the British Astronomical Association's Jupiter Section. "The 2007 fading was terminated rather early, but in other years the SEB was almost absent, as at present."

 

[xXTheOneRavenXx]

I never knew it occurred that many times. ty Wayne. Another tidbit of info for moi Of course this is only how many times someone has observed the SEB changing as it did. I know Jupiter is a very chaotic place, but it's almost as though there is somewhat of a pattern to this. *raises eyebrow* Might be the first step in predicting changes in Jupiters weather patterns.