Credit: NASA/ESA/M/Kornmesser
• As Jupiter is always outside
the Earth it is always observed as a disk. Planets
closer to the Sun can often
be seen as crescents, but
planets further from the Sun
will always be seen as disks.
• In our night skies Jupiter is the third
brightest object to be seen. The
brighter objects are the Moon and
Venus. However when Venus is in crescent it is possible that Jupiter will outshine it. Although Jupiter is a long way
away it’s clouds are very reflective.
• Jupiter does not have seasons like the Earth as the
orbital inclination of the pole is about three degrees
so only varies a little throughout the 11.9 year orbit.
• The storms present themselves in bands whirling around the
orbital plane of the planet. We refer to these as zones and
belts. The lighter zones are clouds at a higher altitude and are
seen to be cooler in the infrared spectrum. The darker belts
are warmer and thought to be lower in the atmosphere. Altogether there are 15 defined areas in Jupiter’s atmosphere
which are mirrored in the northern and southern hemispheres.
• The most famous feature of the Jovian atmosphere is the
storm known as the Great Red Spot. It was documented
in 1899 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, but there were even earlier scientific observations from H Schwabe in September 1831, and it may
well have been observed before that. The Great Red
Spot is easy to view in a modern small telescope on a
night with good visibility when Jupiter is high in the sky.
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