What they didn't know was that this internal heat source could fuel a convective process so remarkably similar to the terrestrial variety. Gierasch said the likely answer is simply that the heat, regardless of its origin, comes from below. A color-coded jovian storm highlights structure. Light areas indicate high haze. Deep red in the lower right shows storm clouds, visible because the haze has cleared.
Researchers suspect the clouds result from condensed water driven by convection.
The schematic at right is a cross-section of the storm showing the cloud structure. The big picture Ruling Jupiter's weather on a larger scale are the wide bands of colorful clouds that circle the gaseous planet, east to west, at speeds up to 300 m.p.h. In another study reported in the same issue of Nature , Andrew Ingersoll and colleagues report that these jets, which are large versions of the terrestrial jet stream, are also fueled by the moist convection described in Gierasch's work. While the terrestrial jet stream is powered by temperature differences between the equator and the poles, as well as between land and ocean, Jupiter's many jets appear to be energized by the planet's internal heat, Ingersoll explained. Rising heat fuels rotating eddies, which feed energy into the jets, said Ingersoll, of the California Institute of Technology.