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Jupiter is undergoing major climate change and could lose many of its large spots over the next seven years, only to make way for the creation of fresh spots in a decades-long cycle, according to a new explanation of old mysteries.
While the analysis remains to be proven, it is seen by other researchers as interesting and, importantly, testable even with large backyard telescopes.
Philip Marcus, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who came up with the idea is an expert in fluid and atmospheric dynamics. He has never seen Jupiter through a telescope. But his computer modeling, reported in the April 22 issue of the journal Nature, accounts for previously noted disappearances of large white spots, and it makes predictions that can easily be verified or refuted. [continued]
http://space.com/scienceastronomy/jupiter_spots_040421.html