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    Simulating Jet Streams and Anticyclones of Jupiter and Saturn

    December 1, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Image of Jupiter (L) and Simulation of Jupiter's Deep Atmospheric Flow (R). On the left side is a NASA image of Jupiter taken from Hubble Space Telescope. On the ride side is results of a 3-D simulation of Jupiter's deep atmospheric flow. The image gives global views of the axial vorticity (curl of the fluid velocity) at the outer boundary, the interior boundary, and in a meridional cut. Blue spots are anticyclones, which are predominant on Jupiter and rotate in the direction opposite Earth's cyclonic storms. In the simulation, the anticyclones are ringed by cyclonic filaments, which have also been observed on Jupiter. The image also reveals the vorticity of the zonal shear, which is much weaker than that of vortices. The interior flow is seen in the meridional cut to be strongly shaped by global rotation. Credit: Moritz Heimpel, University of Alberta

    Image of Jupiter (L) and Simulation of Jupiter’s Deep Atmospheric Flow (R). On the left side is a NASA image of Jupiter taken from Hubble Space Telescope. On the ride side is results of a 3-D simulation of Jupiter’s deep atmospheric flow. The image gives global views of the axial vorticity (curl of the fluid velocity) at the outer boundary, the interior boundary, and in a meridional cut. Blue spots are anticyclones, which are predominant on Jupiter and rotate in the direction opposite Earth’s cyclonic storms. In the simulation, the anticyclones are ringed by cyclonic filaments, which have also been observed on Jupiter. The image also reveals the vorticity of the zonal shear, which is much weaker than that of vortices...

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    Close encounter with Jupiter about 4B yrs ago may have Ejected another Planet from the Solar System

    October 29, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artist’s impression of a fifth giant planet being ejected from the solar system. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute

    Artist’s impression of a fifth giant planet being ejected from the solar system. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute

    The existence of a 5th giant gas planet at the time of the Solar System’s formation – in addition to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune that we know of today – was first proposed in 2011. But if it did exist, how did it get pushed out? For years, scientists have suspected the ouster was either Saturn or Jupiter.

    “Our evidence points to Jupiter,” said Ryan Cloutier
    Planet ejections occur as a result of a close planetary encounter in which one of the objects accelerates so much that it breaks free from the massive gravitational pull of the Sun...

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