APOD: Enhanced: The Dolphin Cloud on Jupiter (2019 Apr 15)

[APOD Robot]

Enhanced: The Dolphin Cloud on Jupiter

Explanation: Do you see the dolphin-shaped cloud on Jupiter? The cloud was visible last year during perijove 16, the sixteenth time that NASA's robotic spacecraft Juno passed near Jupiter since it arrived in mid-2016. During each perijove, Juno passes near a slightly different part of Jupiter's cloud tops. The dolphin shape may be surprising but is not scientifically significant -- clouds on Jupiter and Earth are constantly shifting and can temporarily mimic many familiar shapes. The cloud appears in Jupiter's South Temperate Belt (STB), a band of dark and dropping clouds that rings the planet and also contains Oval BA, dubbed Red Spot Jr. The featured image was digitally processed to enhance color and contrast. Juno's next swoop near Jupiter -- perijove 20 -- will occur on late May.

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[neufer]

<<LEVIATHAN (Hebrew: לִוְיָתָן) is a sea monster from Jewish belief, referenced in the Book of Job, Psalms, the Book of Isaiah, and the Book of Amos. The name לִוְיָתָן‎ is a derivation from the root לוה‎ lvh "to twine; to join", with a literal meaning of "wreathed, twisted in folds". Both the name and the mythological figure are a direct continuation of the Ugaritic sea monster Lôtān, one of the servants of the sea god Yammu defeated by Hadad in the Baal Cycle. Most scholars agree on describing Lôtān as "the wriggling serpent" (bṯn ʿqltn).

Sea serpents feature prominently in the mythology of the Ancient Near East. They are attested by the 3rd millennium BC in Sumerian iconography depicting the god Ninurta overcoming a seven-headed serpent. It was common for Near Eastern religions to include a cosmic battle between a sea monster representing the forces of chaos and a creator god or culture hero who imposes order by force. The Babylonian creation myth describes Marduk's defeat of the serpent goddess Tiamat, whose body was used to create the heavens and the earth.>>

<<Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book LEVIATHAN, which expounded an influential formulation of social contract theory and created an objective science of morality. Much of LEVIATHAN is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war. Hobbes also contributed to a diverse array of other fields, including history, jurisprudence, geometry, the physics of gases, theology, ethics, and general philosophy.

Thomas Hobbes was born prematurely when his mother heard of the coming invasion of the Spanish Armada, Hobbes later reported that "my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear." His childhood is almost completely unknown, and his mother's name is unknown. His father, Thomas Sr., the vicar, was involved in a fight with the local clergy outside his church, forcing him to leave London and abandon the family. The family was left in the care of Thomas Sr.'s older brother, Francis, a successful *GLOVER*.>>

[NCTom]

Looking at the numerous storm circles, would the lighter colored ones have higher cloud tops and be colder while the darker are lower and warmer?

[Ann]

Looking at the numerous storm circles, would the lighter colored ones have higher cloud tops and be colder while the darker are lower and warmer?

I'm not sure, but I believe that I have read the the Great Red Spot towers over its surroundings.

As for the Dolphin: I'm pretty sure that I was one of the first ones to point out the Dolphin in a non-enhanced image of Jupiter. (Although I think I called it a whale.)

I think it is much harder to spot the Dolphin in this enhanced image. Everything is so sharp-edged here that the Dolphin almost disappears.

Ann

[blu_and_zimba]

This is Jupiter? Looks like the cream in my coffee this morning.

[blu_and_zimba]

Looking at the numerous storm circles, would the lighter colored ones have higher cloud tops and be colder while the darker are lower and warmer?

I like this image - very beautiful.
I can't remember about the hight of clouds re: colors without checking.
But, yes, the colors on this image can represent different heights of clouds. In general, images can be a false-color image, though, that are enhanced with the color representing different features of the clouds, like chemical components, albedo, or temperature gradients.
Here, the description says this image was enhanced to emphasize the contrast of the clouds. ie - For our brain to create a familiar pattern of a dolphin.

[orin stepanek]

The clouds on Jupiter look kind of fishy to me!

[neufer]

Looking at the numerous storm circles, would the lighter colored ones have higher cloud tops and be colder while the darker are lower and warmer?

I'm not sure, but I believe that I have read the the Great Red Spot towers over its surroundings.

Lighter color almost always represents high cold ammonia clouds.

However, there is considerable uncertainty as to what causes the darker colors which generally (but not always) represent lower/warmer regions.

[dlw]

The dolphin is being chased by a sea monster !

[rb221]

Can anyone familiar with the science explain why nasa always only publishes and / or records pictures of planets?
After all nasa is a publicly financed institution and apart from publishing nice pictures of planets why don't they ever release actual video footage of the planets? It would be much more impressive to watch some minutes live footage of a flyby rather than always just seeing pictures and manually generated videos based on those pictures. Are we still in the 70's? Why isn't the billion $ probe filming some clips beside all its science analysis? This is a serious question, People should get some good return for their paid taxes, im fine with the science but if you don't give the masses some excitement you don't need to be surprised people are not interested much in funding it all.

[Chris Peterson]

Can anyone familiar with the science explain why nasa always only publishes and / or records pictures of planets?
After all nasa is a publicly financed institution and apart from publishing nice pictures of planets why don't they ever release actual video footage of the planets? It would be much more impressive to watch some minutes live footage of a flyby rather than always just seeing pictures and manually generated videos based on those pictures. Are we still in the 70's? Why isn't the billion $ probe filming some clips beside all its science analysis? This is a serious question, People should get some good return for their paid taxes, im fine with the science but if you don't give the masses some excitement you don't need to be surprised people are not interested much in funding it all.

NASA planetary probes don't record video. They record individual still images, sometimes with a regular enough sequence that timelapse videos can be produced, sometimes not. All of the imagery- every last picture- is publicly available, sometimes with an embargo period of up to a year.

[TheZuke!]

This is Jupiter? Looks like the cream in my coffee this morning.

"I had a dream, there were clouds in my coffee".
-Carly Simon

[neufer]

Over the door of a Leipzig coffeeshop is a sculptural representation of a man in Turkish dress, receiving a cup of coffee from a boy.

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Ganymede pouring Zeus/Jupiter a libation (Attic red-figure calyx krater by the Eucharides Painter, c. 490–480 BCE)

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This is Jupiter?
Looks like the cream in my coffee this morning.

"I had a dream, there were clouds in my coffee".
-Carly Simon

<<Ganymede is the largest and most massive of the Solar System's moons. it is the largest object in the Solar System without a substantial atmosphere. It is 8% larger than the planet Mercury, although only 45% as massive. Possessing a metallic core, it has the lowest moment of inertia factor of any solid body in the Solar System and is the only moon known to have a magnetic field. The satellite's name was suggested by astronomer Simon Marius, after the mythological Ganymede, cupbearer of the Greek gods, kidnapped by Zeus for the purpose.

In the 1970s, NASA scientists first suspected that Ganymede has a thick ocean between two layers of ice, one on the surface and one beneath a liquid ocean and atop the rocky mantle. An analysis published in 2014 suggests that Ganymede might have a stack of several ocean layers separated by different phases of ice, with the lowest liquid layer adjacent to the rocky mantle. Water–rock contact may be an important factor in the origin of life. The analysis also notes that the extreme depths involved (~800 km to the rocky "seafloor") mean that temperatures at the bottom of a convective (adiabatic) ocean can be up to 40 K higher than those at the ice–water interface. In March 2015, scientists reported that measurements with the Hubble Space Telescope of how the aurorae moved over Ganymede's surface suggest it has a subsurface ocean. A large salt-water ocean affects Ganymede's magnetic field, and consequently, its aurora. The evidence suggests that Ganymede's oceans might be the largest in the entire Solar System.>>