Why do Jupiter’s storms rotate backwards compared to those on Earth? Scientists now think they have an answer – and it’s all to do with gas flowing upwards from deep within the giant planet.
On Earth, the Coriolis effect causes our storms to rotate in the same direction as the rotation of the planet, but on Jupiter they rotate in the opposite direction. This new study, by scientists at the University of Alberta in Canada and the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research (MPS) in Germany, shows that an interaction between the layers of Jupiter’s atmosphere is the key to this phenomenon. The research is published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
via IFLScience
photo credit: Jupiter (left) and the computer simulations (right)
NASA/JPL/University of Alberta/MPS
