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Space

When storms collide

Jupiter forms 'white oval' as large as Earth

October 19, 1998
Web posted at: 8:10 a.m. ET
A color composite image of Jupiter's new 'white oval' taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on July 16   

(CNN) -- The recent hurricanes that have pummeled the Caribbean and southeastern United States seemed ferocious from an earthly perspective, but they were but minor wind gusts compared to a new storm raging on one of our planetary neighbors.

For half a century, scientists have observed a series of giant, swirling storms on Jupiter, called "white ovals" because of their color and egg shapes.

Now, the storms have combined into a single system that's as large as Earth itself, according to scientists studying data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Infrared Telescope Facility atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

"The newly merged white oval is the strongest storm in our solar system, with the exception of Jupiter's 200-year-old 'Great Red Spot' storm," said Dr. Glenn Orton, senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). "This may be the first time humans have ever observed such a large interaction between two storm systems."

Although scientists have observed the end result of the merger of the two white ovals, the actual "collision" took place under cover of darkness while Jupiter was turned away from view.

This new, powerful white oval has a mysterious trait, according to Orton.

"We can see it, along with the other white ovals, at visible light and some infrared wavelengths, but we cannot see the new white oval at certain infrared wavelengths that peer underneath the storm's upper cloud layers," Orton said. This might mean the storm is in a transition stage, undergoing a rebirth after the merging of the two storms.

Scientists believe that the bright, visible clouds of the white ovals are composed of ammonia.

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