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Moist convective storms in Jupiter develop frequently and can trigger atmospheric activity of different scales, from localized storms to planetary-scale disturbances including convective activity confined inside a larger meteorological system. In February 2018 a series of convective storms erupted in Jupiter’s South Temperate Belt (STB) (planetocentric latitudes from − 23 ° to − 29 . 5 ° ). This...
We examine Saturn's atmospheric dynamics with observations in the visible range from ground-based telescopes and Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We present a detailed analysis of observations acquired during 2018 obtaining drift rates of major meteorological systems from the equator to the north polar hexagon. A system of polar storms that appeared in the planet in March 2018 and remained active with...
The zonal wind profile of Saturn has a unique structure at 60°N with a double-peaked jet that reaches maximum zonal velocities close to 100 ms−1. In this region, a singular group of vortices consisting of a cyclone surrounded by two anticyclones was active since 2012 until the time of this report. Our observation demonstrates that vortices in Saturn can be long-lived. The three-vortex system drifts...
The Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) onboard the Mars Express (MEx) spacecraft is a simple camera aimed to monitor the release of the Beagle-2 lander on Mars Express and later used for public outreach. Here, we employ VMC as a scientific instrument to study and characterize high altitude aerosols events (dust and condensates) observed at the Martian limb. More than 21,000 images taken between 2007 and...
Since 2013, observations of Neptune with small telescopes (28–50 cm) have resulted in several detections of long-lived bright atmospheric features that have also been observed by large telescopes such as Keck II or Hubble. The combination of both types of images allows the study of the long-term evolution of major cloud systems in the planet. In 2013 and 2014 two bright features were present on the...
The Cassini spacecraft made a gravity assist flyby of Jupiter in December 2000. The Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) acquired images of the planet that covered the visual range with filters sensitive to the distribution of clouds and hazes, their altitudes and color. We use a selection of these images to build high-resolution cylindrical maps of the planet in 9 wavelengths. We explore the spatial distribution...
The Venus thermal radiation spectrum exhibits the signature of CO 2 absorption bands. By means of inversion techniques, those bands enable the retrieval of atmospheric temperature profiles. We have analyzed VIRTIS-M-IR night-side data obtaining high-resolution thermal maps of the Venus south polar region between 55 and 85km altitudes. This analysis is specific to three Venus Express orbits...
We study the effects of migrating solar tides on the winds at the cloud tops of the polar region of Venus. The winds were measured using cloud tracking on images obtained at wavelengths of 3.9 and 5.0μm by the instrument VIRTIS-M onboard Venus Express. These wavelengths probe about the same altitude close to the cloud tops, allowing for the first time to retrieve winds simultaneously in the day and...
The northern mid-latitudes of Uranus produce greater episodes of bright cloud formation than any other region on the planet. Near 30°N, very bright cloud features were observed in 1999, 2004, and 2005, with lifetimes of the order of months. In October 2011, Gemini and HST observations revealed another unusually bright cloud feature near 23°N, which was subsequently identified in July 2011 observations...
The Venus Express (VEX) mission has been in orbit to Venus for more than 4 years now. The Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) instrument onboard VEX observes Venus in two channels (visible and infrared) obtaining spectra and multi-wavelength images of the planet that can be used to sample the atmosphere at different altitudes. Day-side images in the ultraviolet range (380nm)...
Five years of Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem images, from 2004 to 2009, are analyzed in this work to retrieve global zonal wind profiles of Saturn’s northern and southern hemispheres in the methane absorbing bands at 890 and 727nm and in their respective adjacent continuum wavelengths of 939 and 752nm. A complete view of Saturn’s global circulation, including the equator, at two pressure levels,...
We present a study of the long-term evolution of the cloud of aerosols produced in the atmosphere of Jupiter by the impact of an object on 19 July 2009 (Sánchez-Lavega, A. et al. [2010]. Astrophys. J. 715, L155–L159). The work is based on images obtained during 5months from the impact to 31 December 2009 taken in visible continuum wavelengths and from 20 July 2009 to 28 May 2010 taken in near-infrared...
We present a study of the equatorial region of Jupiter, between latitudes ∼15°S and ∼15°N, based on Cassini ISS images obtained during the Jupiter flyby at the end of 2000, and HST images acquired in May and July 2008. We examine the structure of the zonal wind profile and report the detection of significant longitudinal variations in the intensity of the 6°N eastward jet, up to 60ms −1 in...
Near-infrared and mid-infrared observations of the site of the 2009 July 19 impact of an unknown object with Jupiter were obtained within days of the event. The observations were used to assess the properties of a particulate debris field, elevated temperatures, and the extent of ammonia gas redistributed from the troposphere into Jupiter’s stratosphere. The impact strongly influenced the atmosphere...
The atmospheres of the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn possess large numbers of vortices (closed circulation ovals). On the larger scale, above 2000km, anticyclones on Jupiter and Saturn are generally long-lived coherent structures while cyclones survive a much shorter time and behave more chaotically. A long term survey of images of Saturn’s atmosphere obtained by the Cassini ISS camera has revealed...
A study of the dynamics of the second largest anticyclone in Jupiter, Oval BA, and its red colour change that occurred in late 2005 is presented in a three part study. The first part, this paper, deals with its long-term kinematical and dynamical behaviour monitored since its formation in 2000 to September 2008 using ground-based observations archived at the public International Outer Planet Watch...
In this second part of our study of the large jovian anticyclone BA we present detailed measurements of its internal circulation and numerical models of its interaction with the zonal jets and nearby cyclonic regions. We characterized the flow using high-resolution observations obtained by the Cassini spacecraft in December 2000 (9 months after the genesis of BA as a result of the merger of two large...
A study of the vertical cloud structure of oval BA and its red color change is presented in this third part of our complete analysis. A large interest in Jupiter’s anticyclone BA was created by its reddening that occurred between 2005 and 2006. In this work we quantify the color change in oval BA by using images taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)...
A reanalysis of Galileo images of Jupiter's Equatorial Zone obtained in 1999 and 2001 reveals the presence of trains of cloud bands, probably generated by gravity waves, similar to those seen in Voyager 1 and 2 (1979) and New Horizons (2007) images. No such waves have been found in a similar analysis of the Cassini flyby (2000) dataset. We present the properties of these waves and discuss them in...
We have measured the vertical shear of the zonal winds in the cloud-haze upper layer of Saturn using Cassini ISS images obtained in the filters MT2 (753 nm methane absorption band, sensitive to the upper haze) and CB2 (adjacent continuum, sensitive to the lower cloud). Our radiative transfer models indicate that at the eastward jet peaks these filters are sensing clouds at the respective ∼100 mbar...
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