NASA Baffled by Vanishing Jupiter Cloud Belt
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Disappearing act sees South Equatorial Belt obscured from view.
NASA were left scratching their heads late last night as one of Jupiter’s cloud belts has miraculously disappeared.
The South Equatorial Belt (SEB) a brown cloudy band around the circumference of Jupiter has vanished, leaving NASA‘s brightest minds baffled.
Planetary expert Glenn Orton at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab told CNN that they were monitoring Jupiter closely but that the scientists, “do not yet fully understand what’s going on.”
The best guess so far is that the SEB is being hidden from view by a cloud of ammonia. Jupiter has atmospheric cirrus clouds similar to Earth’s wispy formations, but instead of being formed of ice crystals, the clouds are formed of crystallised ammonia. “It’s possible that some ammonia cirrus has formed on top of the SEB, hiding the SEB from view,” Mr Orton ventured.
Monitors from Earth and from space observatories such as Hubble have witnessed similar changes before in Jupiter’s history. In 2007 the SEB band disappeared whilst the New Horizon’s mission was observing the planet. Other alterations when the band faded were recorded in 1993, 1989-90 and 1973-75. This is one of the most prominent changes in modern times however, which has puzzled NASA.
Director of British Astronomical Association’s Jupiter Section, John Rogers said that when the SEB does reappear, the show is likely to be violently impressive. “We can look forward to a spectacular outburst of storms and vortices when the SEB revival begins. It always begins at a single point, and a disturbance spreads out rapidly around the planet from there, often becoming spectacular even for amateurs eyeballing the planet through medium-sized telescopes.”
Sadly astronomers have no way of knowing how long the SEB will be absent from view and on historical precedent could wait for up to two years for the fireworks to begin.
