Page 10 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

Features of the atmosphere
What we see of Jupiter is the atmosphere. It consists of light and dark bands—called belts—of gases that churn around the planet in opposite directions, much like gear wheels in a machine. Set among them are some relatively permanent features, of which the most well known and the largest is the Great Red Spot (see page 14).
When we look at the surface atmosphere of Jupiter, we tend to see it in the same way as the atmosphere on Earth. On Earth we know that the churning pattern is produced by a swirling mass of gases called cyclones and anticyclones (commonly called highs and lows). Similar types of circular, or often slanted oval, features can be seen in the belts. This suggests that there are tremendous up-and-down flows of gases in the atmosphere.
 An artist’s rendering of what it might look like to be within the clouds of Jupiter. The location of this view is similar to the site where the probe from the Galileo spacecraft entered Jupiter’s atmosphere in 1995 (see page 12). The picture has a vertical exaggeration of 25 times.
 The atmosphere on Jupiter is unbelievably turbulent and often resembles gear wheels rotating in opposite directions. In addition, there are wavelike shapes. Such shapes often appear in rapidly moving fluids and are called standing waves.
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