An astronomer from South Africa has discovered a new ‘white oval’ in the southern hemisphere of the gas giant Jupiter.
Jupiter as captured by Clyde Foster’s telescope, and Juno’s approximate trajectory as it zoomed close by the planet, traveling from north to south. Image credit: Clyde Foster.
The new oval-shaped feature was discovered by Clyde Foster, an astronomer from Centurion, South Africa, on May 31, 2020.
The feature was not visible in images captured just hours earlier by Australian astronomers.
Foster spotted the new oval through a filter sensitive to wavelengths of light where methane gas in Jupiter’s atmosphere has strong absorption.
Informally dubbed Clyde’s Spot, the feature is inside the turbulent region near the Great Red Spot.
“Clyde’s Spot is a plume of cloud material erupting above the upper cloud layers of the Jovian atmosphere,” said members of NASA’s Juno mission team.
“These powerful convective outbreaks occasionally erupt in this latitude band, known as the South Temperate Belt.”
This composite image of Jupiter combines five JunoCam images taken on June 2, 2020, between 6:56 a.m. EDT (3:56 a.m. PDT) and 7:25 a.m. EDT (4:25 a.m. PDT). Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Kevin M. Gill / CC BY.
On June 2, 2020, just two days after Clyde Foster’s observations, NASA’s Juno spacecraft performed its 27th close flyby of Jupiter and its JunoCam instrument captured several images of the new oval-shaped feature.
“The orbiter can only image a relatively thin slice of Jupiter’s cloud tops during each pass,” the researchers said.
“Although Juno would not be traveling directly over the outbreak, the track was close enough that we determined the spacecraft would obtain a detailed view of the new feature.”
At the time the images were taken, Juno was between about 45,000 and 95,000 km (28,000-59,000 miles) from the planet’s cloud tops at latitudes of between about 48 and 67 degrees south.
