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Remote determination of the shape of Jupiter’s vortices from laboratory experiments

Nature Physics volume 16, pages 695–700 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Jupiter’s dynamics shapes its cloud patterns but remains largely unknown below this natural observational barrier. Unravelling the underlying three-dimensional flows is thus a primary goal for NASA’s ongoing Juno mission, which was launched in 2011. Here, we address the dynamics of large Jovian vortices using laboratory experiments complemented by theoretical and numerical analyses. We determine the generic force balance responsible for their three-dimensional pancake-like shape. From this, we define scaling laws for their horizontal and vertical aspect ratios as a function of the ambient rotation, stratification and zonal wind velocity. For the Great Red Spot in particular, our predicted horizontal dimensions agree well with measurements at the cloud level since the Voyager mission in 1979. We also predict the Great Red Spot’s thickness, which is inaccessible to direct observation. It has remained surprisingly constant despite the observed horizontal shrinking. Our results now await comparison with upcoming Juno observations.

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Fig. 1: Simplified sketch of the experimental set-up.
Fig. 2: Visualizations in the vortex equatorial plane.
Fig. 3: Predicted and observed evolution of the vortex shape.
Fig. 4: Predicted and measured shape of Jovian anticyclones.
Fig. 5: Observed and predicted evolution of the GRS shape for the last 40 years.

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Data availability

The data represented in Figs. 3 and 5b,c are available with the paper as Source Data. All other data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 681835-FLUDYCO-ERC-2015-CoG). Centre de Calcul Intensif d’Aix-Marseille is acknowledged for granting access to its high-performance computing resources. This work was performed using HPC resources from GENCI-IDRIS (Grants 2019-A0060407543 and 2020-A0080407543).

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Author notes

  1. Giulio Facchini

    Present address: Life Sciences Department, University of Roehampton, Whitehands College, London, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, Centrale Marseille, Institut de Recherche sur les Phénomènes Hors Équilibre, UMR 7342, Marseille, France

    Daphné Lemasquerier, Giulio Facchini, Benjamin Favier & Michael Le Bars

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  1. Daphné Lemasquerier
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Contributions

G.F. and M.L.B. designed the research. D.L. and G.F. performed the experiments. B.F. developed the numerical code and D.L. ran the numerical simulations. D.L., G.F., B.F. and M.L.B. analysed the experimental and numerical data. D.L. led the writing of the paper.

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Correspondence to Daphné Lemasquerier.

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Peer review information Nature Physics thanks Pedram Hassanzadeh, Andrew Ingersoll and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary equations, methods and discussion, Figs. 1–8 and Tables 1–3.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 3

Data used to generate graphs in Fig. 3.

Source Data Fig. 5

Data used to generate graphs in Fig. 5b,c.

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Lemasquerier, D., Facchini, G., Favier, B. et al. Remote determination of the shape of Jupiter’s vortices from laboratory experiments. Nat. Phys. 16, 695–700 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0833-9

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