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The surface of both Jupiter and Saturn has magnificent vortical storms which help shape the dynamic nature of their atmospheres. Land- and space-based observational campaigns over time have established several properties of these vortices,…
Numerous land and space-based observations have established that Saturn has a persistent hexagonal flow pattern near its north pole. While observations abound, the physics behind its formation is still uncertain. Although several…
The zonal winds on the surfaces of giant planets vary with latitude. Jupiter and Saturn, for example, have several bands of alternating eastward (prograde) and westward (retrograde) jets relative to the angular velocity of their global…
The surface winds of Jupiter and Saturn are primarily zonal. Each planet exhibits strong prograde equatorial flow flanked by multiple alternating zonal winds at higher latitudes. The depth to which these flows penetrate has long been…
The weather layers of the gas giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, comprise the shallow atmospheric layers that are influenced energetically by a combination of incoming solar radiation and localised latent heating of condensates, as well as…
The fluid dynamics in planet Saturn gives rise to alternating east-west jet streams, large cyclonic and anticyclonic vortices, and a dipole-dominant magnetic field which is highly axisymmetric about the planetary rotation axis. Modelling…
A longstanding mystery about Jupiter has been the straightness and steadiness of its weather-layer jets, quite unlike terrestrial strong jets with their characteristic unsteadiness and long-wavelength meandering. The problem is addressed in…
The giant planet atmospheres exhibit alternating prograde (eastward) and retrograde (westward) jets of different speeds and widths, with an equatorial jet that is prograde on Jupiter and Saturn and retrograde on Uranus and Neptune. The jets…
The nature and structure of the observed east-west flows on Jupiter and Saturn has been one of the longest-lasting mysteries in planetary science. This mystery has been recently unraveled due to the accurate gravity measurements provided by…
Intense east-west winds called zonal jets are observed in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn and extend in their deep interior. We present experimental results from a fully three-dimensional laboratory analog of deep gas giants zonal…
While conventional interior models for Jupiter and Saturn are based on the simplistic assumption of a solid core surrounded by a homogeneous gaseous envelope, we derive new models with an inhomogeneous distribution of heavy elements, i.e. a…
The meridional temperature profile of the upper layers of planetary atmospheres is set through a balance between differential radiative heating by a nearby star, or by intrinsic heat fluxes emanating from the deep interior, and the…
Three-dimensional studies of convection in deep spherical shells have been used to test the hypothesis that the strong jet streams on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune result from convection throughout the molecular envelopes. Due to…
We explain the emergence and stability of the most important jets and vortices, in the highly turbulent Jupiter's atmosphere, by a statistical mechanics of the potential vorticity mixing. Using the Quasi-Geostrophic 1-1/2 layer, with…
The polar regions of Jupiter host a myriad of dynamically interesting phenomena including vortex configurations, folded-filamentary regions (FFRs), and chaotic flows. Juno observations have provided unprecedented views of the high…
Ultra-hot Jupiters, an extreme class of planets not found in our solar system, provide a unique window into atmospheric processes. The extreme temperature contrasts between their day- and night-sides pose a fundamental climate puzzle: how…
Vortices in protoplanetary disks can capture solid particles and form planetary cores within shorter timescales than those involved in the standard core-accretion model. We investigate vortex generation in thin unmagnetized protoplanetary…
Giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn feature strong zonal wind patterns on their surfaces. Although several different mechanisms that may drive these jets have been proposed over the last decades, the origin of the zonal winds is still…
Jupiter's atmosphere comprises several dynamical regimes: the equatorial eastward flows and surrounding retrograde jets; the midlatitudes, with the eddy-driven, alternating jet-streams and meridional circulation cells; and the jet-free…
Convection in rotating spherical geometries is an important physical process in planetary and stellar systems. Using continuation methods at low Prandtl number, we find both strong equatorially asymmetric and symmetric polar nonlinear…