The Red Spot Mystery

It was astronomy week in Washington, but the astronomers who reported to the American Physical Society and the National Academy of Sciences seemed to be losing ground. For each problem that they solve, they have discovered a new mystery. One of the most intriguing of the new sky puzzles, Radio Astronomers Alex Smith and Thomas Carr of the University of Florida told the Physical Society, is posed by a brief question: What's happening on Jupiter? Radio signals that once came from the distant planet in regularly spaced bursts are now being received at 1.3-sec. longer intervals. "This is almost as surprising as if the city of Washington had begun to drift across the earth at the rate of ten degrees of longitude (530 miles) per year," said Dr. Smith.

The visible surface of Jupiter is a thick cloud-deck streaked with east-west bands. Its other conspicuous feature is the Great Red Spot, which has been observed since 1831 and is generally thought to be some kind of cloud floating high in the planet's thick atmosphere. But according to Dr. Smith, the Spot changed its period of rotation at about the same time the sources of radio signals changed. This may mean that the Spot and the signal are connected in some way. Planets cannot slow their rotation without some outside influence, and there is no influence known to be working on Jupiter. But Jupiter's radio waves may be controlled by its magnetic field, which might conceivably change direction because of some influence deep in the planet's unknown interior. How this change could affect the Great Red Spot, Dr. Smith does not know.

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