What is it about?
This article describes EPIC model simulations of Neptune's Great Dark Spot, a giant swirling wind storm discovered by Voyager that is similar in many respects to Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Two key differences are that the Great Dark Spot: i) changed its shape every few days, as if it were galloping, and ii) drifted equatorward, until it was disrupted in Neptune's tropical region. These simulations show how the Great Dark Spot's equatorward drift is tied to environmental conditions.
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Why is it important?
The process that makes anticyclones, like Neptune's Great Dark Spot, drift equatorward is thought to be the same as the one that makes cyclones, like hurricanes on Earth, drift poleward. Called "beta gyre drift," this process similarly affects anticyclones inside Earth's oceans, like Mediterranean Salt lens, or "meddies," which last up to 5 years under the surface of the Atlantic. This is a good example of comparative planetology.
Perspectives
Over the years since the 1989 Voyager Neptune encounter, new great spots have come and gone on Neptune, as observed by Earth-based telescopes. How these storms drift provides valuable information about the environmental conditions on Neptune, which is difficult or impossible to obtain otherwise.
Professor Timothy E. Dowling
University of Louisville
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: EPIC Simulations of Time-Dependent, Three-Dimensional Vortices with Application to Neptune's Great Dark Spot, Icarus, April 1998, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1006/icar.1998.5918.
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