Weather

Hot temperatures in the United States have led to a unique phenomenon on Southwest Airlines flights—exploding soda cans.

Knewz.com has learned that around 20 flight attendants on Southwest Airlines have been injured so far as a result of this issue.

The summer of 2024 saw heat waves and unprecedented temperature hikes all over the world, including the U.S.

Texas, Las Vegas, and Phoenix – all of whose airports see a lot of Southwest Airlines flights pass – reached triple-digit temperatures this summer.

Incidents of exploding soda cans have mainly been noted in the cities of Las Vegas and Phoenix, in addition to a few other cities where the airline makes regular halts.

Since Southwest Airlines does not serve perishable foods or meals, their flights do not use refrigeration trucks. As a result, the soda to be served on their flights sits in the heat of especially warm days of the summer before they are brought on board.

While the airline has always encountered the issue of exploding soda cans, Southwest has reported a surge in incidents in 2024.

“Airports where we have a large presence — such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and many in Texas — continue to receive record temperatures, with severe heat arriving earlier and persisting throughout the summer,” Southwest Airlines spokesperson Chris Perry was quoted as saying.

“For the safety of our employees and customers, we are taking education and mitigation measures on all heat-related hazards,” Perry added in his statement.

“We are aware of the [exploding soda cans] and have begun taking steps to attempt to mitigate it,” he said.

It is worth noting that the cities of Del Rio and McAllen in Texas saw temperatures reach 112 degrees and 103 degrees respectively in the summer of 2024.

The National Weather Service of Las Vegas wrote in a July 13 post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the city experienced record-breaking temperatures for seven days in a row.

“With a high temperature of 115°F this afternoon we not only extended our streak to 7 days, but we also broke the daily record high. This makes today the 7th day IN A ROW that we have broken or tied daily high temps!” the post on X read.

It was reported that Las Vegas recorded an all-time high temperature of 120 degrees on July 7. Furthermore, the city also saw three consecutive days with temperatures crossing 118 degrees.

At the time, the National Weather Service said that the long-duration heat wave was “extremely dangerous and deadly if not taken seriously.”

Notably, over 20 Southwest Airlines flight attendants have sustained unspecified injuries due to the soda can conundrum, while no passenger injuries have been reported as of now.

As part of the “steps” mentioned by Perry, Southwest Airlines is currently working to find a fix for the soda storage issue in Dallas, Austin, Houston, and Sacramento, it has been reported.

Furthermore, the airline has also directed ground crews to digitally measure the temperatures of the soda cans before bringing them onboard a departing flight.

Additionally, flight attendants have been advised to not open soda cans that appear deformed. In Las Vegas, Southwest Airlines is considering using air-conditioned trucks to curb the issue, The Washington Post reported.

Around 20 people witnessed a meteor passing over the Statue of Liberty and disintegrating around 29 miles above Midtown Manhattan, New York, on Tuesday, July 16.

Knewz.com has learned that the “fireball” was seen over the Big Apple at around 1:17 a.m. local time.

Several eyewitnesses have reported hearing sounds and feeling mild tremors as the meteor zoomed through the New York sky.

The NASA Meteor Watch wrote that the meteor was first sighted at an altitude of 49 miles above Upper New York Bay, east of Greenville Yard.

“Moving a bit east of North at 34,000 miles per hour, the meteor descended at a steep angle of just 18 degrees from vertical, passing over the Statue of Liberty before disintegrating 29 miles above midtown Manhattan,” the NASA Meteor Watch explained in a post on social media.

The trajectory of the “daylight fireball” mapped by the NASA organization is based on eyewitness accounts of the meteor sighting received by the American Meteor Society.

A total of 43 eyewitnesses across New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, and Rhode Island wrote to the nonprofit scientific organization providing details of their sightings.

Many of the reports differ in terms of the color of the meteor and the stages of fragmentation they observed.

An observer by the name of Jonathan K from New Jersey reported seeing “5 very closely spaced red streaks” approaching from the Northeast following the fragmentation and “coming to ground with the red light disappearing about 1500 feet above the treeline.”

On the other hand, an observer named Wendy A from Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania, wrote that the meteor “just fizzled out like glitter” at the end.

A notable observation was made by an individual named Antonio O from New York City, who watched the meteor spectacle for 30 seconds before its fragmentation, following which he saw it break apart into “at least three pieces.”

Antonio reported that the meteor displayed the colors green, light green, yellow, and white, while many other accounts mentioned seeing the color orange.

Another observer named Jason Stier from Wayne, New Jersey, captured footage of the meteor using his Nest doorbell camera. The three-second video showed a faint white trail heading toward the ground at a rather steep angle.

Mark Kirschner from Northford, Connecticut, managed to snap a picture of the meteor and capture a short video of the sighting with his AMS149 Allsky camera. The brief footage also showed a white trail speeding toward the ground at an angle, similar to the video submitted by Stier from New Jersey.

A lot of other observers reported seeing the meteor in the comment section of NASA Meteor Watch’s Facebook Post.

“I think I saw this or another one like it in King of Prussia, [Pennsylvania]. It was right around 11:15 and something caught my eye … I looked up and saw something that looked gray/silver with orange flashing out behind it,” one of the comments read.

“I watched it for a few seconds and then it disappeared. It was north of me and seemed to be heading approximately [Northwest],” the individual added.

Some of the commenters mentioned that although they had not seen the meteor, they “felt” it. “Felt it in Tinton Falls, [New Jersey]. Thought it was thunder. Windows shook,” one such individual wrote in the comments.

NASA’s Facebook post addressed the fact that many observers reported to the media that they felt mild tremors as the meteor passed above them.

“There are reports of military activity in the vicinity around the time of the fireball, which would explain the multiple shakings and sounds reported to the media,” the post explained.

A 3.4 magnitude earthquake rattled residents west of Chicago in the early hours of Monday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The earthquake struck at 2:53 a.m. Monday just northwest of Somonauk, Ill., in DaKalb County, about 65 miles west of the Chicago metro area, at a depth of about six miles, according to USGS.

Despite occurring in the middle of the night when most people are asleep, some residents reported to USGS their experiences of weak to light shaking in the area.

According to USGS, a 3.4 magnitude quake is generally not strong enough to cause damage, though that can depend upon the exact epicenter and the type of structures around it.

Just hours before the earthquake, the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for parts of DeKalb County as well as the Chicago area as severe thunderstorms moved through the area.

The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office in a Facebook post alerted residents that the shaking that may have woken them was in fact “just” an earthquake, and not related to earlier storms.

NWS Chicago said strong to severe thunderstorms are expected again Monday evening, presenting renewed flash flooding risks in areas that saw heavy rain and flooding over the past two nights, though the “primary concern” will be destructive winds.

—TMX contributed to this post.

After unleashing chaos and devastation in the Caribbean Islands and the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, Hurricane Beryl made its fierce landfall in Texas on Monday, July 8.

Knewz.com has learned that Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has already confirmed three deaths in the state due to the hurricane.

Current reports mention that the storm has knocked out power for nearly 3 million Texas residents, as trucks were found flipped on the streets on Monday morning.

The Freeport region witnessed wind gusts of 94 mph, the highest recorded in Texas this hurricane, and hotels, residences, and other buildings within 20 minutes of the beach had their roofs blown off.

The city of Galveston saw continuous 70 mph wind gusts for three hours on Monday.

Police in the city of Rosenberg, which is an hour from the Matargoda region where Hurricane Beryl made landfall, reported rising floodwaters and said that several streets had already been flooded and strewn with debris.

According to a Fox Weather report, the Surfside Beach area saw storm surges ranging between 3 to 7 feet, as reporters and crew members from the outlet noted seeing several 18-wheeler tractor-trailers flipped over on a bridge.

Harris County was one of the areas worst affected by Hurricane Beryl, as 900,000 of the 2.7 million power outages were reported from this region alone. The County also saw the death of one of its residents in the hurricane.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez reported on X, formerly known as Twitter, that a 53-year-old man got trapped under the debris as a knocked-over tree fell on his house.

“Preliminary info indicates one person has been confirmed deceased. Fire department is on-scene,” the Sheriff reported.

The man was reportedly sitting at home with his family riding out the storm. “An oak tree fell on roof and hit rafters, structure fell on the male. Wife and children unharmed,” Gonzalez wrote in an update.

Within two hours of the first death, Gonzalez reported a second one—a 74-year-old woman who suffered the same fate in Spring, Texas, outside of Houston.

“Pct 4 deputies are reporting another fatality. A tree fell on a residence at the 17400 block of Rustic Canyon Trl, striking a woman (74). The woman was pronounced deceased at the scene,” he wrote on X.

A third death was reported in Houston, where officials confirmed that 54-year-old Houston Police Department Information Security Officer Russell Richardson was caught in the rising floodwaters on his way to work and drowned to death.

A separate Fox Weather news report mentioned that Houston saw wind gusts over 70 to 80 mph and over 10 inches of rainfall during the hurricane, which led to flash floods in the region.

Lieutenant Governor Patrick issued a statement about the devastation on Monday, primarily addressing the fatalities and the massive power outages across the state.

“There are nearly 3 million ratepayers without power and at least 10 transmission lines down. CenterPoint Energy, Entergy, and smaller electric co-ops will work around the clock to assess damages and restore power,” the Lieutenant Governor said, adding that this will be a “multi-day restoration event.”

“Sadly, we have been informed of 3 storm-related fatalities, 2 by fallen trees and 1 by drowning. Please join Jan [Janetlea Patricia Rankin, his wife] and me in prayer for the victims and their families,” he added.

“Texas has assets deployed throughout the Coastal Bend, the Houston area, and Deep East Texas, and they will work diligently to assist their fellow Texans… Those in northeast Texas need to be careful if they are on the roads. There will be heavy rains, potential flooding, and tornados possible in that area.”

The Lieutenant Governor also advised residents of northeast Texas to “stay off the roads” on Monday night.

In addition, CNN reported that Montgomery County officials have confirmed three deaths as well, further raising the death toll in Texas.

These include a 40-year-old man who was struck by a knocked-over tree while he was sitting in his tractor, and a man and a woman who were found dead in a tent in a “wooded area in Magnolia.”

Hurricane Beryl caused absolute devastation in the Caribbean islands over the week as it struck Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados after developing into a Category 5 hurricane.

Knewz.com has learned that the hurricane was the earliest storm in the Atlantic to intensify into Category 5.

Locals in Jamaica saw the hurricane intensify rapidly on July 3, with over three Caribbean islands reporting complete or severe destruction of over 90% of residences over the week.

As of now, three people have been reported dead in Grenada, three in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, three in Venezuela, and two in Jamaica.

Treasure Beach, a small fishing and agricultural community on the coast of southern Jamaica, is still trying to cope with the aftermath of the ravaging hurricane, with locals coming together to clean up the streets and help each other.

Rebecca Wiersma, an American tour and villa operator who has lived in the community since 1993, told the news outlet Miami Herald that she had never seen a calamity this bad hit the area.

“Everything is devastated. It’s absolutely devastated… I’ve lived here for 31 years and never seen it so bad,” she told the outlet. “We are just all feeling very grateful that nobody was hurt or killed. That’s the first thing we all start with. Saying ‘Praise God for life.’”

Residents of the Jamaican community reported that the roofs of nearly one-third of the community’s homes had been destroyed, according to a preliminary assessment.

The roof of the Norman Manley International Airport in Jamaica was also partially ripped off by Category 4 winds, with Miami Herald reporting that the southern coast of the island saw the worst of damages.

Adrian Brown, a 27-year-old bartender who has been a resident of Treasure Beach for several years now, reported that the streets were strewn with rippled pieces of zinc metal, commonly used for roofing in the area.

“There’s zinc everywhere from people’s houses… Words don’t even do justice,” he told Miami Herald, adding that the storm went “from zero to a hundred real quick.”

As of now, around 55% of Jamaica is still without electricity and most of the island still does not have access to running water. However, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness has visited the worst-affected areas of the island and promised residents swift relief from the aftermath of the calamity.

“I know some of you are experiencing discomfort and displacement, and I want to assure you that the government will move as quickly as we can to get you the help you need,” Holness said in a statement via The Associated Press.

A man from Union Island, in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, reported that strong winds flew away two of his 2,000-gallon rubber tanks that he had filled in preparation for the hurricane to secure access to running water.

“I strapped them down securely on six sides; and I watched the wind lift those tanks and take them away — filled with water… I’m a sailor and I never believed wind could do what I saw it do. If anyone (had) ever told me wind could do that, I would have told them they lie!” he told The Associated Press.

In the island of Carriacou and the surrounding Windward Islands, strong gusts of wind reached a velocity of 150 mph and higher, with the National Hurricane Center warning that the winds could be fiercer on hilltops and mountains, per USA Today.

Elizabeth Riley, Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, said in a July 3 update, that the damages in the Grenadine Islands are “quite significant” and that residents have been left exposed and vulnerable.

“There’s really nothing that can prepare you to see this level of destruction… It is almost Armageddon-like, almost total damage and destruction of all buildings. Complete devastation and destruction of agriculture. Complete and total destruction of the natural environment,” said Grenada Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell in a statement via USA Today.

YouTube documentarian Jonathan Petramala did an independent coverage of the devastation in Grenada and spoke to some of the affected locals.

His video captured destroyed homes in all directions, and the landscape was dotted with debris left in the wake of the nightmarish Hurricane Beryl. He asked one of the residents how they were, to which they replied, “Alive.”

“Nothing [can] prepare you for this… This is saddening. I won’t wish this on my worst enemy,” one of the locals told Petramala. “Somebody else is going to experience this tomorrow later today… tomorrow.”

One of the locals showed the documentarian pictures of his home and place of business before the hurricane hit and he lost everything. “All of this is gone,” he said.

Hurricane Beryl unleashed its power on the Yucatan Peninsula, striking near the Mexican resort town of Tulum as a Category 2 hurricane.

The forecast suggests that the hurricane is expected to subsequently move towards northeastern Mexico and southern Texas over the weekend, Knewz.com has learned.

After causing devastation in Jamaica and other Caribbean islands over the week, Hurricane Beryl struck the Mexican resort town with great intensity on Friday, July 5.

Notably, much of the area around the town of Tulum is only a few feet above sea level, prompting evacuation efforts by Mexican authorities to move tourists and residents out of low-lying areas before the hurricane hit.

However, thousands of residents and tourists decided to stay in the area and ride out the intense storm, with some of them preparing in advance after seeing the havoc the hurricane wreaked in the Caribbean.

Among them was 37-year-old Lucía Nagera Balcaza, who stocked up on food and stayed holed up in her home until the storm passed.

“Thank god, we woke up this morning and everything was all right… The streets are a disaster, but we’re out here cleaning up,” Balcaza said in a statement to The Associated Press. The news service was the first to report the effects of the hurricane at Tulum.

Lara Marsters, a 54-year-old therapist from Boise, Idaho, was one of the tourists visiting Tulum who took precautionary measures to withstand the effects of the hurricane.

“We’re going to hunker down and stay safe,” she told The Associated Press, adding that she had already filled up empty water bottles from the tap, as access to clean drinking water can become one of the main concerns during a natural calamity such as this.

Upon landfall, Hurricane Beryl knocked out power in Tulum, with army brigades cleaning out fallen trees and power lines from the streets of the Mexican resort town.

It has been reported by The Associated Press that intense winds set off car alarms all across the town as storm and rain continued to pound Tulum and the neighboring regions until Friday morning.

According to Mexican authorities, the maximum speed attained by Hurricane Beryl was recorded at 70 miles per hour. Laura Velázquez, national coordinator of Mexican Civil Protection, reported that nearly half of the population of the Mexican seaside town is still without electricity.

However, there have been no reports of deaths or injuries after the hurricane yet.

The Associated Press reported that authorities had already set up shelters in schools and hotels before Hurricane Beryl struck Mexico. As winds began to intensify at the beaches of Tulum, officials started warning people to leave and began evacuating beachside hotels.

With forecasts suggesting that the hurricane might make a move toward Texas and the Gulf of Mexico soon, some counties of the Lone Star State have already begun taking preemptive action.

Chief of State Emergency Operations Nim Kidd told The Associated Press that oil companies have started evacuating employees from oil rigs along the coast. Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, has already issued a pre-emptive disaster declaration for 39 counties.

Officials in the coastal city of Corpus Christi, Texas, have already depleted their reserve of sandbags after distributing 10,000 of them in two hours on Friday, July 5. Furthermore, some Texas counties in low-lying areas have already issued voluntary evacuation orders ahead of landfall.

It seems the devastation caused by Hurricane Beryl in the Caribbean Islands has struck terror in the hearts of the people living in areas on the path of the storm. Not to mention Southern Texas was hit by tropical storm “Alberto” mere weeks ago.

The Associated Press was the first to report this story.

The world’s coldest city, Yakutsk, lies deep inside Siberia 3,100 miles from Moscow, the capital of Russia, and in winter it is prone to temperatures as low as -58 °F.

Knewz.com has learned that despite the extreme lows experienced in this subarctic territory, it is a mining city that is home to 355,000 people.

According to an article published by Atlas Obscura (via Slate), the longest a person can stand outside in winter is between five and ten minutes and even the locals cannot cope with the cold for more than 20 minutes at a time.

Another characteristic of this icy territory is the sun only shows itself at about 10h40 and, in the winter, even later.

It further notes that temperatures below -70 °F are not unheard of. At this point wearing glasses outdoors becomes an injury hazard as they are likely to freeze on the wearer’s face and not be removed without tearing away chunks of skin.

For car owners, it is imperative to keep the engine running at all times while outdoors. Failing to do so will result in frozen oil and fuel, and a broken-down vehicle until spring—while back home, garages are heated and batteries are wrapped in special blankets.

As for the human that has to be outdoors, “the right clothing is crucial. For maximum warmth, it’s all about fur: reindeer boots, muskrat hats, and fox coats. Such gear is pricey—a pair of decent reindeer boots cost around $600—but it’s a solid investment in not freezing to death,” per Atlas Obscura.

Another aspect affecting life in this city is the fact that it is perched on a layer of permafrost, meaning; the ground below is constantly frozen resulting in most houses and businesses being built on stilts.

The winter months in the region are October to April and the thaws of Spring often spell severe flooding. The warmest month is July – which is the extent of summer in the region – when temperatures reach highs of 70°F.

As uninhabitable as this may sound, residents have learned to adapt to the cold. Anastasia Gruzdeva, during a particularly cold snap in 2023, told Reuters: “You can’t fight it. You either adjust and dress accordingly or you suffer.”

“You don’t really feel the cold in the city. Or maybe it’s just the brain prepares you for it, and tells you everything is normal.”

A fishmonger at the local market, Nurgusun Starostina, who sells her wares without the use of a fridge said “just dress warmly in layers, like a cabbage.”

Even though it is the world’s coldest city, it is not the closest city to the North Pole. The record holder for the latter is Norway’s Longyearbyen with a population of 2617 people. 

The town boasts restaurants, a school, a church, and a cinema, with relatively warm lows of -4.0°F.

Hurricane Beryl has torn across the island country of Grenada on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean flattening numerous homes and businesses.

Knewz.com has learned that where the uncharacteristically early storm did not create “extremely dangerous and life-threatening” circumstances, it devastated lives and livelihoods. 

On the island of Carriacou, officials noted when the storm made landfall, it was accompanied by winds moving as fast as 150mph. At that point, the roofs of houses were ripped off.

YouTube documentarian, Jonathan Petramala made it onto the island in the wake of the tempest and spoke to a few of the affected locals.

His camera captured a scene of devastation with what was once colorful brightly-colored homes reduced to debris as far as the eye could see.

“How are you?” Petramala asked one man trying to deal with the effects of the natural disaster.

“Alive,” came the answer. The individual had never been through a Hurricane before and had no idea what to expect when the community was warned of the impending travesty the day before.

“Nothing [can] prepare you for this,” he said while shaking his head. “This is saddening. I won’t wish this on my worst enemy.”

“Somebody else is going to experience this tomorrow later today… tomorrow.” 

“We have three [storm] systems right behind us,” the man noted. “What about the people who don’t have time to recover.”

Another local standing outside his place of business and home showed photos of what it looked like before Hurricane Beryl flattened it.

“All of this is gone,” he said, and went on to tell Petramala that he had lived in the place for the last three years, but now thanks to the storm, his food truck was gone along with his home and his mother’s.

Like Petramala’s first interviewee, this individual claimed that when he heard about the impending storm he never expected this level of damage.

The video kept filming as Petramala wandered off onto the main street lined with junk and at a point, impassable.

“There isn’t a business here that isn’t touched.” One of the establishments that took heed when the warnings were issued, was the Grenada Co-Operative Bank. Its windows remained boarded up while everything around appeared to be ravaged.

As Petramal walked along the streets speaking to the island’s people he met one of the locals who asked him if he had ever experienced a hurricane before. Petramala said he had. 

The interviewee-turned-interviewer then asked if he had seen worse, to which Petramala said: “This is as bad as it gets.”

“There’s no exaggeration—this is as bad as it gets.”

Hurricane Beryl was a category 5 storm that formed earlier in the season than usual due to the uncharacteristically warm ocean currents.

According to the Associated Press, by late morning, July 2, the winds propelling it had reached speeds of 160 mph. 

The United States National Hurricane Center Director, Michael Brennan, has since warned that Jamaica would be next and sustain a direct hit from the incoming storm. 

A church youth group in Utah was hiking in a light rainstorm when lightning struck nearby, shocking dozens and sending seven to the hospital with injuries, officials said.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints youth group from Salina, Utah, were hiking Thursday, June 27, south of the Fremont Junction near the Willow Springs overlook in the eastern part of Sevier County when it began to rain at around 1:45 p.m., according to the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office.

The rain caused water to puddle on the ground, so when lightning struck the ground nearby, “approximately 50 youth felt the shock of the lightning,” the sheriff’s office said. Seven of the hikers required medical attention.

The injured youths were transported by ambulances from Emery and Sevier Counties to Salina, where they were triaged. It was determined that two of the youths were experiencing “serious symptoms,” and they were flown by medical helicopter to Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital in Lehi. The remaining five injured youths were transported to Gunnison Valley Hospital and Sevier Valley Hospital.

The sheriff’s office said none of the injuries were expected to be life threatening.

The remaining youths were accounted for and transported back to Salina, and returned to their parents.

—TMX contributed to this report.

According to new research, satellite images of cyclones on Jupiter captured by NASA have revealed that they are fueled by processes similar to those on Earth.

Knewz.com has learned that the common geophysical factors between Earth and Jupiter can lead to a better understanding of the processes that charge cyclones on our planet.

The latest research is being led by Lia Siegelman, a physical oceanographer at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who found that the cyclones in the polar regions of Jupiter are powered by processes that physicists studying Earth’s oceans and atmosphere are familiar with.

She published her initial research on the subject in the journal Nature Physics back in 2022 after noticing a striking resemblance between satellite images of Jupiter’s cyclones and the ocean turbulence on Earth.

At the time, Siegelman had commented that “air and water are both considered fluids” to a physicist, “so applying ocean physics to Jupiter isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds.”

“Jupiter is basically an ocean of gas,” the oceanographer had said, according to a press release from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

In her 2022 research, she demonstrated that cyclones on Jupiter are fueled by convection, a process by which heat is transferred by the movement of a heated fluid, similar to that on Earth, although storms on the gas giant can be thousands of miles wide and last for years.

While the research focused on Jupiter’s cyclones, Siegelman also noticed “wispy tendrils,” known to researchers as filaments, between the gas vortices on the planet.

She recently published a follow-up research focusing on the “tendrils,” using satellite images captured by the Juno spacecraft of NASA.

“The study shows that the filaments between Jupiter’s cyclones act in concert with convection to promote and sustain the planet’s giant storms. Specifically, Jupiter’s filaments act in ways that resemble what oceanographers and meteorologists call fronts [like cold or storm fronts] on Earth,” the press release explained.

“A front is the boundary between gas or liquid masses with different densities due to differences in properties like temperature. In the ocean, fronts can also be due to differences in salinity, which influences the density of seawater along with temperature.”

“A key feature of fronts is that their leading edges feature strong vertical velocities that can create winds or currents,” the press release added.

To better understand the filaments, or tendrils, Siegelman studied a series of infrared images from the North Pole of Jupiter captured by the Juno spacecraft in 30-second increments. The images showed her and study co-author Patrice Klein of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to calculate the temperatures of the different photographed regions.

The team of researchers then “tracked the movement of clouds and filaments across the 30-second intervals separating the photographs to calculate horizontal wind speeds.”

“These two pieces of information allowed Siegelman and Klein to apply methods from ocean and atmospheric science to Jupiter, allowing them to calculate the vertical wind speeds that would correspond to the temperatures and horizontal wind speeds the researchers derived from the images,” the press release wrote.

“Once the team calculated the vertical wind speeds, they were able to see that Jupiter’s filaments were indeed behaving like fronts on Earth.”

Noting this similarity, Siegelman commented about the possibility of similar processes being present on other planets as well.

“These filaments in between the large vortices are relatively small but they are an important mechanism for sustaining the cyclones. It’s fascinating that fronts and convection are present and influential on Earth and Jupiter – it suggests that these processes may also be present on other turbulent fluid bodies in the universe,” she said.

“There is some cosmic beauty in finding out that these physical mechanisms on Earth exist on other far-away planets.”