Jupiter's Great Red Spot May Soon Disappear (nationalgeographic.com) 80
The Great Red Spot has been a fixture of Jupiter 's cloudy visage for centuries and is among the most recognizable features in the solar system. But it won't always be there. In fact, the Great Red Spot is shrinking, and recently, news stories reported that it could vanish within the next 10 or 20 years . From a report: Older observations, from the late 1800s, suggest the storm once spanned more than 30 degrees in longitude and was more of a "Great Red Sausage," says Glenn Orton of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But the storm's shape is changing, most significantly in width, and as time marches on it's becoming less oval and more circular. Way back when, the storm stretched more than 25,000 miles across. When the Voyager spacecraft flew by in the 1970s, scientists estimated that the Spot was just 14,500 miles wide. In 2014, a Hubble Space Telescope observation put the Spot at just 10,250 miles across, and by last spring, it spanned just 10,140 miles. So when will it disappear entirely? Truth is, scientists have no idea. But if you measure the rate at which the Great Red Spot has been shrinking, and extrapolate linearly from that, it looks like the spot will vanish completely in about 70 years, says Amy Simon of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Problem is, "we know for certain it doesn't work like that at all," she says.
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It's getting harder and harder... (Score:1)
...to get intelligent comments on /.
Usually, like 5 years ago and before, There was always that frickin' "Frost Piss" sucker, but then you could get something intelligent. Now, the first 4-5 threads are just rubbish.
If nothing is done to remove this fuckin shit, I may simply no longer come here. I already come fewer on /. since Trump's election cause everything in the world that happens triggers some excessively boring Trump references. Now, with all the "Frost Piss", "Ni99ers", "Because of Trump" and "Glo
We're all fucked. (Score:2, Funny)
This is clearly related to Global Warming. The Corporations are killing our children and Bush lied to us all.
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Yeah, but it is not our globe that is warming in this case, so we should be ok.
The anti-acne spray is finally working (Score:2)
Looks like the giant dispenser that aliens built that we call Io might have done its job at last.
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Quick, someone get the Jupiterians to stop driving cars and eating meat. It's changing their climate.
"Everything I see is proof that climate change is a horrible hippy hoax"
-This Dickhead, 2018
Climate change (Score:4, Funny)
Climate change is having more effects than we anticipated !
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Link with Jupiter' red spot? (Score:2)
The guys living there might need a new home and their wives decided a change to Blue would be nice.
Clickbait Title ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Only actual information: Jupiter's spot has shrunk over the last 100 years. No one knows what will happen next.
I feel like this summary & article wasted my time.
Re: Clickbait Title ... (Score:5, Informative)
It's becoming increasingly common that the summaries contradict the headlines here on slashdot, leading the astute reader to question the function so-called editors serve...
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I figured it out. We're the ones making the mistake by thinking that the editors serve the reader by eliminating errors and clarifying content.. They actually serve the site - their function is to increase clicks on articles and thereby ad impressions. If an error leads to more people clicking on the article, that's a win in their book.
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Whenever I see "may" or "could" language in headlines I automatically read them as "may not" or "could not". It doesn't change the accuracy of the title and I can quickly dismiss it because if I can negate the entire title without changing the meaning something is wrong and its not worth my time to click clickbait.
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The headline is taken from the article being quoted. The summary - the three sentences that aren't the quote - accurately summarize what was reported.
What the fuck will satisfy you?
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Nonsense! It gives us an opportunity to shake our fists while saying, “Damn you, climate change! What won’t you destroy?”
That’s time well spent, right there.
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Hey at least it made me laugh at the end...
Also reinforces my need not to RTFA... because spoilers!
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Not to mention that the summary is not even consistent. 10-20 years or even 70?
More evidence, as if we needed it... (Score:4, Funny)
...to prove that climate change is real. someday people will listen, when it is too late.
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...to prove that climate change is real. someday people will listen, when it is too late.
So what you're saying is "humans don't cause climate change: look at Jupiter's red spot". :-) Careful, the deniers can turn any evidence against you. Not logically of course. Not with any basis of science, but none the less anything you say will just make them believe they are more right.
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Man made global warming (Score:1)
HAS to be the problem....or TRUMP LMAO
Global warming (Score:1)
It's all because of global warming, isn't it.
Take that, climate change deniers!
Let me explain this (Score:1)
It's Bush's fau...I mean it's Trumps fault! (Sorry, wrong meme.)
Maybe it will, maybe it won't... (Score:2)
Nobody knows... But does that stop the bold from making unsubstantiated predictions based on mathematical models? No..
So... If you guys are so good at forecasting the weather on Jupiter, why are you so bad about doing it here? Maybe you should pick a simpler system to model, say the stock market, and make a killing?
This Fine article is pretty much worthless... Nobody really knows where that red spot came from, it's been there as long as we could actually see enough detail to see it, we have little pro
Global warming (Score:2)
Just be thrilled that we're seeing it. (Score:3)
Very few geological or planet events occur within a lifetime or so seeing this in one's lifetime is pretty unique. Recall the Hale-Bopp comet which was one of the brightest comets seen at the beginning of the millennium which won't return until long after we're dead. (some 2000+ years) Scientists aren't familiar with Jupiter weather and it also isn't well understood so we don't know exactly what's going on so it's just a wild guess as to whether the spot will ultimately disappear or get bigger. The only thing we've noticed is that there's other smaller spots on the planet which come and go so it's not likely that the big spot is forever.
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I'm surprised at the concerted and overwhelming level of trolling. We've always had a cadre of moronic science deniers, but this seems exceptional.