Presenter: Mike Corkill

Researcher: Kate Follington

Wednesday, 3 March 2004

An Amazing Disturbance In Jupiter's Clouds.....

It is a very elongated, bluish streak that runs along the interface of the dark South Equatorial Belt.

The first hint that that something unusual was taking place in the cloudy Jovian atmosphere came from Spanish amateur when he reported that a small, bicolored feature was formingt in the Southern Hemisphere a little over2 weeks ago. NOW, this disturbance has stretched, what looks like, right around the planet!

At the moment it's too early to be sure of the nature of this disturbance or its potential evolution. The wide band shown on the photograph could, quite easily measure, 3-4 times the diameter of the Earth!

Although Jupiter has, in the past, produced some unusual upper cloud features, nothing like this has ever been seen before!