What is it about?
Neptune has giant, high-pressure storms like Jupiter's Great Red Spot, except unlike on Jupiter there are no swirling clouds visible in Neptune's great dark spots. Instead, a bright companion cloud tends to form, like the clouds attached to a mountain or tropical island, and for the same reason: moist air rises over the obstruction and condenses into a cloud. This article uses the EPIC model to simulate this process for methane vapor interacting with a variety of possible high-pressure storms on Neptune.
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Why is it important?
Often only the bright companion cloud can be seen and not the underlying high-pressure storm that is causing the moist air to rise and form the cloud. By simulating different sizes of storms, in particular by varying how thick the storms are vertically, this study provides guidance on how to interpret companion clouds on Neptune.
Perspectives
Usually a study like this would be associated with a PhD project, but in this case it comes from the mechanical engineering masters thesis of the lead author.
Professor Timothy E. Dowling
University of Louisville
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: EPIC Simulations of Bright Companions to Neptune's Great Dark Spots, Icarus, June 2001, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1006/icar.2001.6603.
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