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Jupiter loses a stripe.
- xenonite 17y agoconspiracy theories, anyone?
- _Lemon_ 17y agoThere is an alien base situated directly behind the planet. Their own pollution and resource consumption is the direct result of the changes in the planet's atmosphere. We haven't got long.
- varjag 17y agoAnthropogenic global warming?
- dca 17y agoBP was mining for some toxic gas on the surface of the planet when something went horribly wrong. Now they're pumping out 5000 Bcfe's of it per day into the southern hemisphere and its destroyed the red stripe we'd become so accustomed to.
- jcl 17y agoTheir volcano is vacationing on another planet.
- demallien 17y agoWell, it might just be a coincidence that StarCraft 2 beta has just been launched, but personally, I'm thinking "Ender's Game". Damned Zerg!
- pavlov 17y ago"All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there." (A. C. Clarke, "2010")
- mapleoin 17y agowhy? or would that be considered a spoiler to the book?
- rauljara 17y agoIt would be pretty hard to explain why without explaining 90% of the plot. Fortunately, there is wikipedia, which will do the spoiling for me - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010:_Odyssey_Two http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010:_Odyssey_Two
- jrockway 17y agoInteresting article. Normally when I read an article in the form of "some natural phenomenon has stopped occurring", I get worried and think of how the human race is fucking over the planet and we're all going to die, unless we figure out what we did wrong. That was the initial thought that went through my mind when I clicked through to this article. Then I realized, hey... that's another planet. We didn't cause the problem! We can just watch and not care one way or the other. If we figure out why, great. If we never do... also fine. Quite relaxing.
- davidbr02 17y agoI had a similar thought progression, but then I went from "What did we do?" to "Oh crap is Jupiter going to blow up or something" and finally "Wait, that is stupid"
- tom_rath 17y agoActually, we probably do want to care about that. We know Earth's environment is changing but be don't really know why. Our planet is a single data point in the solar system, which makes analysis a little difficult. Is Mars getting warmer or colder? Is Jupiter? Why is Jupiter's atmosphere visibly changing? If all other planets in the solar system are getting warmer/colder, shouldn't we expect Earth's temperature to change as well? It's like a bright neon sign flashing "Clearly Explained Reason for Increased Solar System Exploration", but the space agency budget folks will likely ignore it and attempt to gain public support through some asinine vision quest thing instead.
- lutorm 17y agoJupiter's atmosphere is really complex, probably more so than the Earth's due to its internal heat, high spin rate and lack of surface. I'm not sure we should look there for clues about the changes in the Sun. Probably much easier to just measure the solar output.
- Retric 17y agoI agree that sending probes thought the solar system is interesting, but other planets are not worming. PS: This is the second time the band has disappeared discovering why that happens may be interesting like the North pole hexagon cloud pattern over Saturn but it's probably not a temperature effect: http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060519/full/news060515-17.html http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060519/full/news060515-17.ht...
- gaius 17y agoWHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS?
- Groxx 17y agoDon't forget the other important question: WHERE ARE THEY?
- davidbr02 17y agoI'm sure it will turn up in the last place you look for it
- chime 17y agoThat's quite a difference: http://i.imgur.com/ISCI3.png http://i.imgur.com/ISCI3.png Note that the Great Red Spot is in the same location where the stripe used to be. I'm surprised they didn't mean that in the article. If you look at how the Great Red Spot spins against the southern stripe, you can imagine it gobbling up the stripe: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/790106-0203_Voyager_58M_to_31M_reduced.gif http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/790106-02...
- RyanMcGreal 17y agoOn closer inspection, astronomers detected what appears to be a large and rapidly-growing collection of black rectangles on the surface.
- johngalt 17y agoALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE USE THEM TOGETHER USE THEM IN PEACE *Edit Ack! pavlov beat me to it
- RyanMcGreal 17y agoPedantic note: the last part - "USE THEM TOGETHER USE THEM IN PEACE" - was added to the movie version, in which the story was overlaid with a now-anachronistic Cold War tension between the American and Soviet members of the mission.
- robhood 17y agoJupiter loses a stripe Its observed Jupiter has lost a stripe And now scientists have a new gripe Conservatives may have much to say Why the stripe has lost its way and MSM will be blessed with new type
- xenonite 17y agosame could happen to... eg. the gulf stream! europe would be frozen like sibiria... look around, in fact there are people anticipating a shutdown: http://www.gulfstreamshutdown.com/ http://www.gulfstreamshutdown.com/