by Chris Peterson » Wed Dec 01, 2010 6:49 pm
dougettinger wrote:I am suggesting a frozen body comprised mostly of ammonia struck Jupiter in the SEB when the impact was hidden from our cameras. The impact aftermath may differ depending upon the materials in the body, the angle of impact, and its size. Also, the body could have broken-up or exploded into many pieces that became submerged in the SEB. The impact might not be immediately noticcable within the swirling cloud cover. Eventually, the ammonia material boils off and rises above the dark surface of the SEB. Gradually the lighter ammonia circulates around the latitude of impact and temporarily covers the dark band with its different reflective characteristics.
A lot of coulds, a lot of mights. It is hard to overlook the fact that no frozen ammonia body has ever been observed. Ammonia is a trace component in comets, present at less than a percent of the concentration of water. I don't even know of any reasonable mechanism that could produce ammonia bodies. And given the size of cloud-top effects we have seen from small impacts such as that of SL9, it is very difficult to believe that something capable of depositing enough material into Jupiter's atmosphere to completely disrupt a major equatorial belt would produce an invisible impact, or that it would even go unseen in comet surveys, since we are talking about an object tens of kilometers or more in diameter.
Quickly changing weather on Earth is due to the tilt of the spin axis, longitudinal currents in the oceans, and possibly solar winds.
I disagree with that assessment. These may be factors in our weather system, but they are hardly the only (or even dominant) factors contributing to the rapidity of change.
These factors do not exist for Jupiter. Quickly changing weather characteristics of darkening bands and spots on Jupiter may have other factors such as small to large random impacts of bodies of different compositions.
What is "quick"? Weather patterns on Jupiter- especially large scale ones- tend to be stable for very long times- months to centuries.
[quote="dougettinger"]I am suggesting a frozen body comprised mostly of ammonia struck Jupiter in the SEB when the impact was hidden from our cameras. The impact aftermath may differ depending upon the materials in the body, the angle of impact, and its size. Also, the body could have broken-up or exploded into many pieces that became submerged in the SEB. The impact might not be immediately noticcable within the swirling cloud cover. Eventually, the ammonia material boils off and rises above the dark surface of the SEB. Gradually the lighter ammonia circulates around the latitude of impact and temporarily covers the dark band with its different reflective characteristics.[/quote]
A lot of coulds, a lot of mights. It is hard to overlook the fact that no frozen ammonia body has ever been observed. Ammonia is a trace component in comets, present at less than a percent of the concentration of water. I don't even know of any reasonable mechanism that could produce ammonia bodies. And given the size of cloud-top effects we have seen from small impacts such as that of SL9, it is very difficult to believe that something capable of depositing enough material into Jupiter's atmosphere to completely disrupt a major equatorial belt would produce an invisible impact, or that it would even go unseen in comet surveys, since we are talking about an object tens of kilometers or more in diameter.
[quote]Quickly changing weather on Earth is due to the tilt of the spin axis, longitudinal currents in the oceans, and possibly solar winds.[/quote]
I disagree with that assessment. These may be factors in our weather system, but they are hardly the only (or even dominant) factors contributing to the rapidity of change.
[quote]These factors do not exist for Jupiter. Quickly changing weather characteristics of darkening bands and spots on Jupiter may have other factors such as small to large random impacts of bodies of different compositions.[/quote]
What is "quick"? Weather patterns on Jupiter- especially large scale ones- tend to be stable for very long times- months to centuries.