Show Date: March 22, 2006 
Pam Eastlick for THE DEEP on line

SEEING RED

Welcome to The Deep science and technology column where we cover topics from the deep sea to deep space and beyond. Join us each week on Newstalk K57 on Wednesday night from 7 to 8 p.m. for exciting live science expeditions or listen live on our web site www.thedeepradioshow.com

One of the solar system’s enduring mysteries is the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. It’s the largest and longest lasting storm in the solar system. It appeared in the first drawings of Jupiter in the mid-1600’s and students of Galileo’s drawings and notes think he may have also seen it in the early 1600’s. It’s been swirling through Jupiter’s cloud decks for at least 300 years.

The Great Red Spot changes in size, but it’s usually big enough that two Earths could be dropped into side by side. It’s so big that if you were caught in the edge of this gigantic storm, it would take you six days to make one complete trip and the winds of the Great Red Spot blow in excess of 200 mph.

Despite that incredible wind speed, this brick-red storm isn’t a typhoon. The winds blow the wrong way. The Great Red Spot isn’t an area of low pressure, it’s an area of high pressure and it dredges material from deep inside Jupiter’s atmosphere and drags it to the surface. Or rather, high above the cloud tops. The top of the Great Red Spot is five miles above the surrounding clouds.

We don’t know why it’s red either. A favorite theory is that the material that’s brought to the surface interacts with ultraviolet radiation from the Sun and produces the red color. Sulfur has also been suggested as the coloring agent.
There are also large white spots on Jupiter. None of them are anywhere near the size of the Great Red Spot and they combine and split with regularity. In 1998, two white spots collided and combined, producing a larger white spot. In September of 2000, that spot ran into yet another white spot to produce an even larger white spot. This one was given the designation Oval BA.

	Oval BA remained white for five years, but it slowly grew larger. Then in December of last year, it began to turn brown. A few weeks ago, it began to assume that familiar brick-red color and now it’s the same color as the Great Red Spot. It’s still about half the GRS’s size, however, which means it’s only about the size of our own planet.
Above: Red spots on Jupiter, photographed by amateur astronomer Christopher Go on Feb. 27, 2006.

Christopher Go, an amateur astronomer who lives in the Philippines photographed Oval BA on February 27th using an 11-inch telescope and a CCD camera. As you can see from the label in the picture, amateurs and professionals alike have taken to calling Oval BA, Red Jr.

f you’d like to find Jupiter in your own personal sky, just get up before dawn any morning this week and face east where the Sun will rise. You’ll see an incredibly bright star high above the eastern horizon. That’s not a star; that’s Venus.

If you turn 90 degrees to your right, you’ll see another bright star high overhead in the south. That’s not a star either; that’s Jupiter. Take your binoculars, brace them against something like the car roof and have a look at Jupiter.
You won’t see Red Junior, or the Great Red Spot or even any cloud bands, but you will see two, three or four small bright stars in a line next to Jupiter. Those are Jupiter’s four big moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto and you can watch their positions change from day to day. Go on a voyage of discovery in your own back yard while you listen to The Deep radio show.

Join us this week on The Deep for more science updates this week, like the plight of one of the Mars rovers and news about global warming and the first moments of our newborn universe. Don’t miss it! The Deep is broadcast on Newstalk K57 every Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. You can also listen live from our web site www.thedeepradioshow.com. Join Jim Sullivan, Pam Eastlick, and Peter Melyan on the deepest radio show on Earth.