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HOW JUPITER GOT ITS STRIPES.
A new study of turbulence in the atmosphere around a rotating sphere is helping to explain the dramatic stripes on Jupiter, Saturn, and the other giant planets. On Earth, turbulence caused by solar heating and friction with the ground disrupts atmospheric flows and dissipates the energy provided by the sun that might otherwise lead to the formation of circulating, global cloud bands. In the thin atmospheres of gas giants, however, energy dissipation is small, and some of the sun's energy is gradually collected in stable, global jets that trap clouds and form planetary stripes.
Researchers at the University of South Florida and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel) have a computer model that shows how planetary rotation and nearly two-dimensional atmospheric turbulence combine to create large scale banded structures. The new research quantifies the distribution of energy among different scales of motion, and describes basic energetic features of giant planets' circulations.
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