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A probe should be launched to align in a geosynchronous orbit directly above the centre of the red spot on jupiter. The calm at the eye of the storm may let us get images of the surface not obtainable through the cloud cover.
I mean, the things been swirling for over four hundred years now, I
doubt it's going to peter out before we get there if we give it a go.
Voyager photos from 1979
http://voyager.jpl..../image/jupiter.html
Previous expedition, 33000 pix [csea, Jun 09 2008]
geo-
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/geo-
[borisbarp, Jun 09 2008]
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Annotation:
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It would have to line up almost perfectly with the sun to see inside. Alternately, the spacecraft could consist largely of an enormous mirror. Really, really enormous. |
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[csea], would you mind rechecking that link? It'll work better if you leave the prefix on. |
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Sorry, Google didn't include the http:// . Fixed. |
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//geosynchronous orbit directly above the centre of the red spot on jupiter//
You want a device that's 22000 miles above the Earth to also be directly over Jupiter's red spot? |
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Look at a picture of Jupiter. The Red Spot is about two thirds of the way
down. |
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Satellites can only orbit in a plane which passes through the body's
centre of mass. A satellite passing over the Red Spot would have to
cross over Jupiter's equator for the other half of its orbit. |
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It couldn't just hover above the Red Spot. The best you can do is to
pass over it once per orbit. |
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Also, the Red Spot is basically a big vortex in the upper levels of
Jupiter's sky, a purely gaseous phenomenon. |
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Its rotational period is probably not quite as stable as the orbit of
a satellite. |
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Any satellite that tries to follow it will need some kind of active
orbit correction to keep it above the spot as it meanders through the
planet's atmosphere. |
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Went to Jupiter. It looks red. |
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Just curious: How far above Jupiter's 'surface' would a geosynchronous orbit be? Use any figure you like for the surface radius. . . I'd really like to know. |
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Anyway, the idea is a good one and the info to be gathered would be enormously useful to future Callisto colonists. |
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According to Wikipedia (that font of knowledge), Jupiter has a rotation of about 10 hours. That's nuts! |
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I estimate that geostationary orbit around Jupiter is going to be at about 746x10^9m... |
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Ah geostationary. Makes sense. |
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Does the prefix Geo apply only to Earth? |
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Hmmmmm, good question. . . |
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I have always used 'geo-' to refer to 'geological' bodies - those made of rock, or at least ice. Geographical and geodetic are relevently used in reference to other planets too. |
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For relating specifically to Earth, I have always used 'terra-' though I have never seen the word 'terrasynchronous'. Still, it sounds cool. |
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After searching unsuccesfully for the latin equivalent of "planet", I came to the conclusion that there is no latin equivilaent of "planet." |
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Due to progression of astrological speculation, we are now aware of a void within modern diction. As there is no latin word available to use as a root, I shall create one: |
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Snorfography:
(noun)
Inflected Form(s): plural snorf·og·ra·phies
Etymology: Snorf(Mike D) + graphein(Latin) to write.
Date: 2008
1: a science that deals with the description,
distribution, and interaction of the physical, and if
applicable; the biological and cultural features of a
planet's surface
2: the snorfographic features of an area
3: a treatise on snorfography
4 a: a delineation or systematic arrangement of
extraterrestrial constituent |
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Terrasnorf:
(noun)
Etymology: Terranum(Latin) + Snorf(Mike D)
Date: 2008
1 a (1): a snorfographic area. (2): a piece of land on a
planet. : extraterrestrial ground b: the physical
features of a tract of land on a planet other than Earth. |
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Does anyone know why the red spot is red? Or indeed why the various turbulence patterns are the colours they are? |
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I've heard explanations that they suggest different mineral traces - but you'd have thought (what with entropy and all that) it would have all been mixed up quite evenly by now - could it be evidence of some underlying dynamic that we are currently unaware of? |
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// aware of a void within modern diction // |
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"Xenosynchronous" would be acceptable. |
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Jupiter's second-to-innermost moon, Adrastea, has an orbital semi-major axis of 128,700 km; it's orbital period is just over 7 hours. (It's in the outer part of Jupiter's ring.) The next moon out, Amalthea, is at 181,400 km and just under 12 hours. Split the difference for something near a 10 hour orbit. |
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I like it, and I don't think I've ever typed a word that I hadn't made up into a search engine and gotten only one hit. |
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Snorf is...well it's just wrong. |
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Xeno - of course. How silly of me. |
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{Whacks "Snorf" over the head with a shovel and buries it outside.} |
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We're not even sure Jupiter has a surface. |
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We know (but we're not telling). |
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Hey [Spacecoyote], are you an agressive collective cybernetic life form too ? Pleased ta meetcha, buddy ! |
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Why is the red spot red? The 'spot' is really a hurricane-like phenomena and is almost certainly pulling something up from lower levels. just what is not known with certainty. Hazarding a guess - and in the Halfbakery all guesses are hazardous - it would seem likely the material is a solid hydrocarbon comprised of atmospheric molecules combined with hydrogen and/or nitrogen found deeper in Jupiter's atmosphere. Spectrographically the red spot is very similar to readings from Titan's atmosphere and we know there is a hydrocarbon gunk falling out of that atmosphere. |
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So a quick search shows it must have a surface; a few trapped asteroids glumped together if nothing else, and that a probe we sent was crushed as it reached twenty times our surface pressure.
Is the air pressure in the center of a cyclone less than normal? |
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If so, we may be able to drop a probe down that funnel farther than we otherwise could. |
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//Hydrocarbons// Does this mean that if we found a cheap way to drag it back to Earth, we could burn Juptiter's atmosphere for fuel? Petrol crisis, your days are numbered. |
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//"Xenosynchronous" would be acceptable//
An orbit around a foreigner?
Bit light on "specific", I'd say. |
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.... oxygen crisis, your time is coming ....... |
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See "Gasping" by Ben Elton for a darkly comic view of a similar scenario. |
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//burn Jupiter's atmosphere//
Only if you had enough oxygen to sustain combustion. Better is to use Jupiter's helium-3 supply for fusion reractions. This even saves the trouble of having to move Jupiter and leave the satellites with no one to orbit around. Nothing worse than an unemployed satellite roaming space with nothing to do. . .nowhere to go. . .no one to care. . . |
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"planet" is from Greek (and I'm pretty sure "graphein" is too,
BTW). So planetosynchronous / planetostationary? |
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