Knowra Extraterrestrial vortex Extraterrestrial vortex An extraterrestrial vortex is a rotating flow of gas or liquid beyond Earth. Examples include storms in planetary atmospheres and vortices in the liquid hydrocarbon seas of Titan.
Great Red Spot : A persistent anticyclonic storm in Jupiter’s atmosphere, observed for centuries. It is the best-known example of a giant, long-lived vortex beyond Earth.
Cyclone : A rotating atmospheric system organized around a region of low pressure. Planetary cyclones are one major class of extraterrestrial vortex.
Coriolis effect : The apparent deflection of moving objects in a rotating reference frame. Planetary rotation shapes the direction and organization of large atmospheric flows.
Juno (spacecraft) : A NASA spacecraft that has studied Jupiter’s atmosphere, gravity, magnetic field, and interior since 2016. Its polar observations revealed Jupiter’s clustered cyclones and atmospheric structure.
Saturn's polar vortex : A rotating storm centered over Saturn’s north pole, enclosed by the planet’s hexagonal jet stream. It is a compact polar storm, unlike the broad anticyclonic Great Red Spot.
Neptune's Great Dark Spot : A large, dark atmospheric storm system observed on Neptune by Voyager 2 in 1989. It showed that giant vortices also occur in the cold atmospheres of ice giants.
Anticyclone : A rotating atmospheric system organized around a region of high pressure. The Great Red Spot is an anticyclone, unlike many terrestrial storms.
Atmospheric circulation : Large-scale movement of air that redistributes heat and momentum around a planet. Vortices form within, and exchange energy with, a planet’s broader circulation.
Voyager 2 : A NASA spacecraft launched in 1977 that flew past the outer planets and entered interstellar space. Its Neptune encounter discovered the Great Dark Spot and documented giant-planet weather.
Planetary ring : A disk of orbiting dust, ice, or rock surrounding a planet. A ring may look like a rotating structure but consists of orbiting particles, not a fluid vortex.
Show all 27