Save the big red spot.
One order of ALL-THE-GREASIEST-FAST-FOOD to launch, please.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot is shrinking. Fast. NASA recently released the images below comparing the spot's size in 1995, 2009 and 2014. Boffins there believe that 19th-century observations of the Spot pegged its widest point at around 41,000km. By the time the two Voyager craft cruised past in the 1980s that was down to 23, …
"Recent Hubble Space Telescope images suggest it may be just 16,000km across, and observations support a theory it is shrinking by perhaps 1000km a year.
Theoretical astrophysicist and cosmologist Alan Duffy has opined that the Spot might be losing energy as it encounters other storms spinning in the opposite direction."
I'm waiting for an opinion piece by someone at The Register saying that the Spot is really gaining size, and that the methodology Hubble used to measure its size is discredited. Also some shite about a hockey stick.
I'm pretty sure that weather systems show chaotic behaviour, so a simple linear extrapolation over too long a period is very likely invalid. Perhaps under 20 years is short enough. It will be interesting to see if the spot remains, growing and shrinking erratically, or if it disappears and reappears over a long timescale. I'll probably die first, and miss all the excitement.
Which is true science. Even then, extrapolating the data and making predictions only holds as much confidence, as the data you have previously give you. Too add to that, successfully demonstrating the predictions also helps, as no amount of historic data will help if tomorrow it actually does rain in the Sahara.
I'm waiting for an opinion piece by someone at The Register saying that the Spot is really gaining size, and that the methodology Hubble used to measure its size is discredited. Also some shite about a hockey stick.
Which wouldn't necessarily be shite in and of itself. We have observed that the spot has completely disappeared at several points in the past, obscured by higher level cloud. No, I haven't looked at the research in detail but there had better be some more substance than a few photos behind it.
The People of the United States of America strenously object to this interstellar attempt at intimidation and WILL forcefully confront any further alien activity alluding to the use of non-diplomatic solutions to the European Question.
The right of the USA to land on Europa is unassaible and not up for discussion.
Indeed, interstellar arrest warrants have already been issued by the Federal Court of Lower Bumfuck against the following aliens: Grwz-kronb, Liob-Harr, TTS-56 and Lllllluurrinnnnnurin The Elder.
Hi Peter I think you have got the wrong end of the stick, I was pretty sure he meant Attic and personally I would be well annoyed if the Russian decided to put a drilling platform in my Attic. I mean where am I meant to keep my old Computer's and may be useful one day computer parts.
"His guess is as good as any"
It is? Good! Here's mine:
The hole in the crust that is sucking all the atmosphere into the otherwise vacuum-filled hollow core of the planet has clogged up with various bits of detritus over the years, including huge rocks from the Shoemaker-Levy event.
I arrived at this hypothesis after a session unblocking my bathroom sink. The model produces repeatable results and I judge it reliable, if annoying.