Cassini Spies Wave Rattling Jet Stream on Jupiter

Following the path of one of Jupiter's jet streams, a line of V-shaped chevrons travels west to east just above Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
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March 12, 2012

PASADENA, Calif. -- New movies of Jupiter are the first to catch an invisible wave shaking up one of the giant planet's jet streams, an interaction that also takes place in Earth's atmosphere and influences the weather. The movies, made from images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft when it flew by Jupiter in 2000, are part of an in-depth study conducted by a team of scientists and amateur astronomers led by Amy Simon-Miller at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and published in the April 2012 issue of Icarus.

"This is the first time anyone has actually seen direct wave motion in one of Jupiter's jet streams," says Simon-Miller, the paper's lead author. "And by comparing this type of interaction in Earth's atmosphere to what happens on a planet as radically different as Jupiter, we can learn a lot about both planets."
MORE: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-070&cid=release_2012-070&msource=12070&tr=y&auid=10439675

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