White Spots [ID: 4]

5 Comments

1. comment by Sputnik-56 on 2016-01-05 00:01 UT
   

   The storms are interesting, collide and form new cyclones.

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2. comment by Beowulf-59 on 2015-12-20 13:52 UT

   One white spot = one fragment collision.

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3. comment by Beowulf-59 on 2015-12-20 13:51 UT

   This is the rest of Shoemaker-Levy collisions, nothing other...

   One white spot = one fragment collision.

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4. comment by Bagration-62 on 2015-12-20 01:43 UT

   Drifting cyclones

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5. comment by Glenn on 2015-12-18 22:53 UT

   JUNO SPECIALIST

   They are somewhat similar to the Great Red Spot and the "Little Red Spot" (officially Oval BA) because winds are rotating around them counterclockwise. They appear to be long-lasting, unlike cyclonic regions. I suspect these intermediate-sized ovals last months to years, but I'll have someone check up on that. The bigger they are, the longer-lived they appear to be. They are upwelling regions in the upper troposphere, so they act like high-pressures regions, unlike hurricanes on the Earth, which are low-pressure vortices. It's a current matter of debate on why they aren't red like the GRS or Oval BA, but we think it's likely that they don't loft particles high enough and/or long enough to have UV radiation change the chemistry to something that looks red. But they are generally high in humidity and cloudy, with the upper white clouds consisting of a combination of ammonia (NH3) ice and something else (either coating them or forming nucleation sites) because we seldom detect spectroscopic bands that uniquely belong to solid ammonia. Lightning doesn't appear to form in these regions, but in cyclonic regions, which makes us think that the short-lived cyclones that are dry, clear and most probably downwelling regions are upwelling regions at great depth.

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