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Sci-Fi Space Science

Mystery Spot on Jupiter Baffles Astronomers 64

Posted by Hemos from the the-black-big-red-spot dept.
seanmeister writes "From Space.com: "Astronomers have spotted a strange, obvious and inexplicable black spot near the equator of Jupiter. A picture of the object is circling this planet electronically as researchers scratch their heads about what they've found. A second image, taken on another day by a different photographer, contains a similar looking spot. As of early today, the second image had deepened the mystery. Some astronomers were at first puzzled over whether the two photos show the same thing or not. As it turns out, they do not." I, for one, welcome our new monolith overlords!"
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Mystery Spot on Jupiter Baffles Astronomers More

Mystery Spot on Jupiter Baffles Astronomers

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  • Solution being resolved. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:32PM (#7296473)
    Wow! This is amazing.

    Oh ... wait ... it appears that on closer inspection by NASA officials, the spot is merely a smudge on the surface of earth's atmosphere. They are currently sending out astronauts from the space station to wipe off what appears to be a giant extra-galactic space bug, which mistakenly thought that the earth was a some sort of space-tree, smashing into the newly-enabled earth energy barrier, in order to counter the effects of the current magnetic storm occuring in our solar system. NASA has advised citizens to stay calm, as the mess will be cleaned up shortly, restoring the viewing clarity. It appears to be some sort of crazy coincidence that the spot moves along with Jupiter. NASA estimates that this situation will be repaired before the 28th, but complications unfolding the microgravity chammie may arise.

    Some conspiracy theorists believe that this may be a space ship, but this was quickly dismissed by chief NASA officials, saying that everybody knows that the space ships that are that size are orbiting Saturn.

    -- Joey Joe Joe Jimbobalu
    NASA PR Department

  • Simple answer. (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Xenex ( 97062 )
    Monoliths. Lots of monoliths. [amazon.com]

    I can't wait for Lucifer!

  • Thanks (Score:5, Informative)

    by avalys ( 221114 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:36PM (#7296492)
    The link to the actual article [space.com].
  • and emcompassed Space.com.

    God. Damn. It.

  • Mystery spot? (Score:3, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:45PM (#7296540)
    You mean you go all the way to Jupiter and pay $11 to tour a run-down shack with tilted tables and floors?

  • Aaahhhhh! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Josh Booth ( 588074 ) <<moc.oohay> <ta> <0002htoobhsoj>> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:49PM (#7296572)
    <reference src="Muppet Treasure Island">

    [looking at a piece of paper with a black circle on it]

    Billy Bones: The Black Spot! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

    </reference>

    Oh, wrong black spot. Right, the 2010 black spot. So, when do we get our second sun? I don't feel like sleeping anymore.


    • > <reference src="Muppet Treasure Island">

      Oh, the movies you have to know in order to follow the discussions on Slashdot! The Matrix, Spiderman, LotR, ... Muppet Treasure Island ...

  • Galileo's revenge? (Score:5, Funny)

    by gargleblast ( 683147 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:56PM (#7296610)
    So that's what happens when you plunge a plutonium-powered space probe into a gas giant...

    • Star Wars Cantina Pickup Lines (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Hey baby, mind if I plunge my plutionium-powered space probe into your gas giant?"

  • Top 10 Explanations for Jupiter Mystery DarkSmudge (Score:4, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:58PM (#7296622)
    10. Roy Scheider says it is hatching black slabs again.

    9. Then they realized that the dark area was really that dratted corner-logo for the Sci Fi channel in the corner of the screen.

    8. Zug Island: A New Beginning [jankaulins.com]

    7. Rush Limbaugh is passing in front of the planet.

    6. Damn it, Galactus! Why did you spill your coffee again?

    5. It's just the new Mystery Spot. The Wal-Drug and the Tommy Bartlett Robot World are on the other side of the planet (as if you did not know already from the billboards plastering Mars and Venus).

    4. It started with a blown transformer in Cleveland, I think

    3. Those sneaky bastards: New Jersey put a colony on Jupiter already!

    2. "Dubya and the corporate military industrial complex are to blame"

    1. Jenkins! Did you sneeze on the telescope mirror last night and forget to tell anyone?

    0. "I, for one, welcome our new Jovian albedo-reducing overlords."
  • "Oh my god, it's full of money!" $_$

  • spots on Jupiter? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by joshsnow ( 551754 )
    Well, clearly, it's ET, isn't it? Those spots are his eyes. Every time he blinks, the spots vanish.

    Who knows, he and Drew Barrymore may be making sweet ..er...music out there. Let's hope ET has his cell phone with him - with all this attention, things could get out of hand...

  • No need to worry (Score:3, Funny)

    by kurosawdust ( 654754 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @09:19PM (#7296735)
    I'm an expert in this particular field - all you have to do is check to see if there is a similar spot on the other side...Your rule of thumb is 'symmetry = good. asymmetry = spend the night worrying and reconciling with all those who youve wronged until you can get a doctor to look at it and conclude that it's just a particularly old and ornery Milk Dud.'
  • Does anybody wonder if this has anything to do with NASA ditching Gallilieo with its radioactive engine and all straight into Jupiter? Just a thought...
    • Considering Jupiter's mass and composition....nope
    • Well, let's see. What has changed on Jupiter over the past few weeks? Nothing, except our probe hit Jupiter.

      But no matter what your common sense tells you, remember this: my equations say that that is impossible, and thus it is impossible. You need not trouble me with your insolent questions. I am Science!

      • It might have taken a few weeks for the stuff to get down far enough into jupiter to explode and then for the spot to come to the surface. Still, it's just a spot, and probably has nothing to do with the probe.
      • The plutonium on in the radioisotope batteries onboard galieo wasn't the right kind for nuclear fission anyway.

  • It's full of corny SF references.

    And I don't mean my list of recent comments [slashdot.org].

  • I'm thinking that it is just the final touches to the Jupiter Death Star [google.com] project.

    We're like soooo doomed.

    Ralf

  • Like being dominated do you? ;)

  • It is a spiritual enemy [washingtonpost.com] that will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus and pray for this nation and for our leaders.

    It is a demonic presence [modbee.com] ... that God revealed to me as the enemy.

    We should invade immediately

  • Maybe not so mysterious... (Score:5, Informative)

    by OneOver137 ( 674481 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @10:14PM (#7297021) Journal
    I was googling for info and came across a page from JPL. The date is 1998 and the photo from Galileo.

    An excerpt:

    "A recently discovered black spot in Jupiter's clouds is darker than any featue ever before observed on the giant planet. The spot may be theresult of a downward spiraling wind that blows away high clouds and revealsdeeper, very dark cloud layers." Here's the link:

    http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA01496
    • We were having a great time wearing tinfoil helmets and speculating about hostile alien superintelligences, and you go and be the party pooper with the facts!
      • OneOver137's observation impressed the hell out of me. I wish we had more like him on Slashdot.

        His comment alone made this collection worth reading.

        While I have his link still in my cut and paste buffer, I'll go ahead and throw a href tag on it : http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA01496 [nasa.gov].

        ( Finally! Somebody else out there who is probably puzzled beyond imagination over the number 137, and why it keeps popping up all over the place when studying physical parameters of the Universe. 137. Exac

  • Maybe this is like a Sun spot, but for Juipter. I'm not sure, but I think Sun spots have something to do with the magnetic field of our star acting up, so maybe this is a side effect of Jupiter's magnetic field doing wierd things. I also read somewhere long ago that if Jupiter would have got 10 times bigger, nuclear fusion would have started, and we'd be a binary system. Maybe Jupiter's firing up thanks to Galileo. Probably not, but maybe. Stranger things have happened... wait... no they haven't. Oh well.

  • amateur astronomers (Score:2, Interesting)

    by grosa ( 648390 )
    It's pretty cool that astronomy is pretty much the only field where amateur work is not only accepted but also encouraged. if it wasn't for the thousands of people gazing up at the stars with their home telescopes, most of this stuff would get missed.

    it's pretty cool some of the things you can capture with a nice 4.5" scope and a modified webcam.

  • Is it just me (Score:4, Informative)

    by barakn ( 641218 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @10:51PM (#7297179)
    or did anybody else notice that Jupiter's north pole is pointing down in these photos [space.com]. Oh, yeah, and look at this page [fluid.tue.nl] for some photos of dark spots caused by comet Shoemaker-Levi 9.
    • it's an artifact of the telescope. In this case the scope is a SCT design. It gives an upside-down and reversed left-right image at the eyepiece.

      • Re:Is it just me (Score:3, Informative)

        by barakn ( 641218 )
        Something that is upside-down AND left-right reversed has merely been rotated 180 deg (its 'handedness' changes every time you flip it, whether it's right-left or upside-down, and two flips will rectify it). If you rotate the aforementioned Jupiter photos, the red spot appears in the appropriate southern hemisphere and the surface features rotate in the right direction.

        In fact, anybody who images Jupiter through a telescope isn't likely to catch it with its equator nicely aligned with with the CCD's pixel

        • of course now i've gotta clarify some things i said. I assumed inverting involved flipping the image, but rotating the image will also turn it upside down but without changing the handedness. Typically the main optics of a telescope will rotate the image upside-down. It's those of us that choose to use a diagonal that get our images with their handedness reversed as well. Cameras are usually mounted on the optical axis, not a diagonal, and so should take images that are merely rotated, like the Jupiter
    • When you look though an astronomical telescope, the image appears upside down. Since additional optics needed to flip the image are likely to slightly degrade the image we don't bother flipping the image.

      Since astronomers have been images/drawing planets seen south down in telescopes for a hundred plus years, normal convention is to leave the image south down.

      Of course NASA decides to do things their own way, so when they publish images from the Hubble Space Telescope they normally put north up (This "

  • (1) Planetary acne. Quit touching your face, Jupiter!

    (2) That's where Osama and Saddam are hiding.

  • i love that movie.
  • another a.c.clarke's prophecy?
    communication satelites, orbital lift, jupiter's moon europe life, jupiter monolith, what's next? moon magnetic anomaly?
  • "This time, however, astronomers did not report the presence of any potential nearby impactor," Dighaye said.

    SL9 was pretty bright and very noticable on the discovery films. Even though it was broken up in to small pieces, they tended to make big spots.

    If this is a result of a impactor, given the smallness and light color of the spot, the impactor would have likely been small, very faint and would have likely gone unnoticed.

    Especially since the current crop of astroid/comet hunting teams use automate

  • That planet has been circling there for billions of years. Nasa sends one probe to it and they break it. It's not as if we've planets to waste. Please handle them with care.
  • "full of stars?".

    ya. ok it's a bad 2001 shot.

  • The Great Red Spot simply had an inter-racial baby. Now, stop teasing the poor little thing.

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