The Planetary Society Blog
By Emily Lakdawalla
Jupiter has lost a belt!
May. 10, 2010 | 15:22 PDT | 22:22 UTC
Via Daniel Fischer's Tweet about a blog entry by Astro Bob
I learned of something which should be obvious to anyone who has
trained even a rather small telescope on Jupiter over the past few
weeks: one of its iconic stripes is just plain gone.
Jupiter loses a belt Over
a period of a year, one of Jupiter's two main dark belts -- the dark
stripes most visible in amateur telescopes -- has faded completely
away. The South Equatorial Belt (SEB) is gone, leaving just the north
belt (NEB) viewable in small telescopes. Credit: Anthony Wesley |
Astro Bob explains in more detail,
remarking: "Jupiter with only one belt is almost like seeing Saturn
when its rings are edge-on and invisible for a time -- it just doesn't
look right." But, apparently, this is an event that happens rather more
frequently than the Saturnian equinox, once every 3 to 15 years.
The photos above are from Anthony Wesley, the same guy who discovered the
impact scar on Jupiter
last year; but you don't need to be as fabulous an astrophotographer as
Wesley to see this for yourself. You do, however, need to get up early;
Star Walk (my iPhone astronomy app of choice) tells me Jupiter rises
around 3:30 a.m. right now. If you don't feel like getting up early,
just
check out Wesley's website for more wonderful photos of Jupiter.
Jupiter on May 8, 2010
In April and May 2010, the south equatorial belt of Jupiter had faded into pinkness. Credit: Anthony Wesley
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