Abstract
A CIRCUMSTANCE which, so far as I know, has not yet been noticed, seems to me to afford very strong evidence in favour of my theory that the cloud-belts of Jupiter are caused by heat existing in the planet itself. If the cloud-belts were caused by solar heat, they should exhibit a characteristic corresponding to what is observed in the case of the earth's equatorial cloud-zone. “At the equator,” Kämtz remarks, “the sun nearly always rises in a clear sky; towards mid-day the heavens are clouded; towards evening the clouds disperse.” Now it follows that to an observer regarding the earth as we see Jupiter, there would appear at all times only a fragment of an equatorial belt, near the middle of the disc. But the belts of Jupiter present no such fragmentary appearance; there is a change in their aspect close by the edge of the disc, but the change is one obviously arising from the foreshortening.
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PROCTOR, R. Are Jupiter's Cloud-belts due to Solar Heat?. Nature 2, 236 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/002236a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/002236a0
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