Why Jupiter Changes Color Every 5 Years? The Big Reveal!

Why Jupiter Changes Color Every 5 Years?

Jupiter is a huge and fascinating planet made mostly of hydrogen and helium, like our Sun. However, it didn't gather enough stuff during its formation to become a Star. Instead, it became a colossal ball of gas that could fit more than 1,300 Earths inside.

Jupiter has these interesting patterns of dark and light clouds that go around the planet in alternating bands like giant stripes. These dark stripes are called Belts and lighter ones are called Zones.

Why are these belts brown and beige? 🤔

Those can be explained by the combination of hydrogen, helium, and other trace elements in the planet's atmosphere. It's like mixing different colors of paint to create new shades. These belts create beautiful patterns across the planet's surface. Now, because Jupiter has such a massive atmosphere and a weather system similar to Earth's, it experiences some extraordinary storms.

So even though these stripes may look calm and peaceful, they're part of a wild weather system. The belts go against Jupiter's rotation, like going against the flow, while the zones join the dance. Not only do they move in different directions, but they also exist at different heights in the planet's atmosphere.

But what's the big mystery around them? 🤔

One day scientists decided to look at data deep inside Jupiter, about 30 miles below the surface. And after peeking in Jupiter's secrets, they noticed something strange. When they looked at Jupiter using a special type of light called Infrared, the colors of its stripes switched around.

The light bands that were pale and creamy in normal pictures become dark in the infrared view. The dark bands that were belted before now shined brightly in the infrared. 😳

But here's the most strange part. Every few years, something changes. It's like the weather on Jupiter goes through a wild roller coaster ride.

For a while, scientists have been scratching their heads trying to figure out why this happens and decided to use a special spacecraft called Juno to investigate this. Scientists have been looking at the data collected by Juno over the years and noticed something interesting.

Jupiter's magnetic field has little motion, like when you see waves in the ocean. Scientists call these motions torsional oscillations, a fancy way of saying wave-like movements. It's like Jupiter is doing its magnetic dance.

Deep within Jupiter, there are slow currents that carry heat upwards, just like a conveyor belt. This heat eventually reaches the upper part where we see the clouds. These wavy magnetic movements, the torsional oscillations, disrupt the slow currents inside Jupiter, messing up the cloud patterns and causing wild weather.

When the scientists calculated the time it takes for these wave-like motions to happen, they discovered that they match the same periods when the stripes on Jupiter change.

So, in simple terms, scientists think that these wave-like movements in Jupiter's magnetic field are causing the changes in the stripes on the planet. Scientists are still trying to understand why this happens fully. 👀

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