What processes are responsible for shaping Jupiter and Saturn’s polar weather? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address as a team of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) investigated how the polar vortex structures on Jupiter and Saturn could provide key insight into the interiors of both planets. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the complex processes on gas giant planets, which could serve as analogs for gas giant exoplanets.
For the study, the researchers used a series of computer models to simulate how the vortex patterns on Jupiter and Saturn are produced. The motivation for this study comes from several years of spacecraft images and observations that clearly show both planets exhibiting very different polar vortex patterns. Until now, researchers have been stumped regarding the processes responsible for two different patterns on each planet. In the end, the researchers discovered that the planet’s interior composition is responsible for the polar vortex patterns. For example, Jupiter’s interior is comprised of light materials, resulting in a large area of smaller vortices. In contrast, Saturn’s interior is comprised of denser materials, resulting in one large vortex.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM
“Our study shows that, depending on the interior properties and the softness of the bottom of the vortex, this will influence the kind of fluid pattern you observe at the surface,” said Dr. Wanying Kang, who is an assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) and co-author on the study. “I don’t think anyone’s made this connection between the surface fluid pattern and the interior properties of these planets. One possible scenario could be that Saturn has a harder bottom than Jupiter.”
What new insight into Jupiter’s and Saturn’s polar vortex dynamics and their interiors will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, EurekAlert!