HOW STORMY JUPITER LOST A RING AROUND THE PLANET

You've probably heard of the rings of Saturn, but you may not know about the rings of Jupiter.

One of them seems to be missing.

Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, a giant ball of gas and liquid about 500 million miles from the sun, usually shows off two dark, slightly reddish bands, or stripes -- one in the northern hemisphere, one in the southern.

The southern one has disappeared.

It was there last year, but when Jupiter came out from behind the sun on its yearly orbit, it was gone.

Before you short stocks and buy gold for the approaching apocalypse, relax. This happens occasionally, although nobody is sure why.

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"The last time it happened was 1973," said Eric Vandernoot, the Astronomy and Physics Lab coordinator at Florida Atlantic University. "This is why Jupiter is my favorite planet. It's a constantly changing system, and it's wonderful to watch. You can see the changes occur on any given night."

Vandernoot points out that next year, on March 17, Jupiter's orbit will come its closest to the sun, but he doesn't think that's why the band has disappeared.

The most likely reason? The cooling of gases on the planet's surface.

But that's just a guess, too.

Jupiter is not a solid mass, although it has a core that's about four times the size of Earth. Surrounding that is a thick sea of liquid metallic hydrogen and then a lot of gas, which is what we see.

The gases, which include sulphur and phosphorus, form the belts that are created by 350-mph winds fueled by Jupiter's rapid rotation. The belts, or stripes, are probably a function of the gases heating and cooling.

"We think it's a hurricane that's been lasting 350 years on the planet, and there's nothing to slow it down, like, say, tall buildings. Or Florida," Vandernoot said.

"Everybody oohs and aahs about Saturn and the rings. But in fact Saturn is so pale, you don't get to see much. But Jupiter, you can see the moons, you can see the shadow of the moons move over the planet. It's not a static picture in a textbook, it's real."

And if you can wait a few months, Jupiter will be closest to Earth on Sept. 24, which is when you'll get the best view of it.

Without one of its stripes.

~ scott_eyman@pbpost.com

So, don't live in fear of September 24th...Just be aware of it!

John Marchesella

Would you like to swing on a star, carry moonbeams home in a jar...

Today’s Jupiter-Saturn opposition will no doubt go unnoticed in popular culture. But even among astrologers, this isn’t the Big Doin’s it used to be.

Back before the discovery of the outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, Jupiter and Saturn were the two furthest planets anyone knew about, and their 20 year cycle was watched closely for the social and political changes it heralded.

Now that we have Saturn in opposition to Uranus, who is about to square Pluto, the cycle of Jupiter and Saturn might seem as exciting as Pacman is to today’s video games. But this cycle might catch our attention a bit more if we recognized some of it’s more concrete manifestations.

Because it is a 20 year cycle and has been falling on the decade line for some time, it has also contributed to the sense that the 60s were different from the 70s... or the 20s were different from the 30s. Social trends have seemed to hinge right on the “0” years for some time (although that is obviously very complex).

The latest cycle began on May 28, 2000. That was right around the time the Dot Com bubble burst and the high-rolling 90s came to an end. We all put out our cigars and put away our top hats, recognizing we might not be such investment geniuses after all.

The Euro was introduced around this time. Actually, the Euro became an electronic currency on January 1, 1999, at the closing semi-sextile of the cycle, and paper currency was introduced on January 1, 2002, at the opening semi-sextile. Thus, the midpoint in time of these two Euro landmarks was the 2000 conjunction.

For most of the past decade, the Euro has been gaining on the dollar as the international reserve currency. The history of the Euro is interesting, and extends back at least to the formation of the European Common Market, although it was really first put into motion in 1992. Germany, whose Deutsche Mark was a strong currency in its own right, pushed for the Euro after reunification of East and West Germany made economic ties seem more appealing.

Now, at the opposition, or peak of the cycle, the Euro is in crisis. The PIGS (Portugal, Greece, Spain... and no one seems sure... Ireland, Italy? Lots of “I” countries are in trouble) are pulling down the value of the currency, which dropped to 2004 levels on the news of the economic crisis in Greece (the Euro is still strong against the dollar compared with it’s rate at introduction).

As we work through this peak in the Jupiter-Saturn cycle through March of 2011, we are likely to see the Euro severely tested as an international currency. Clearly, the honeymoon period (and it was a rough one, all in all) is over. Jupiter and Saturn represent inflation and recession, respectively, and at present everyone is concerned about these two economic scenarios.

There are other social manifestations of Jupiter-Saturn, and these may get more airplay than economics as the opposition moves from Virgo-Pisces to Libra-Aries for the next two rounds. Still, the Aries energy (supported by Uranus and the remaining Saturn-Uranus opposition) may have some countries questioning their participation in the Euro.

Armand Diaz