Abstract
Periodic Changes of Colour on Jupiter.—Mr. A. Stanley Williams has observed Jupiter assiduously for a period of nearly forty years; in Mon. Not. Roy. Ast. Soc. for May, he discusses the question of periodic changes of colour in the case of the two equatorial belts, using observations from 1868 to the present time. He gives graphs which indicate clearly that there is a 12-year cycle in the colour changes. The maximum redness for the south belt occurred about 1873, 1884, 1897, 1912, 1926; that for the north belt about 1868, 1880, 1891, 1903, 1918, 1928. It appears, therefore, that the two hemispheres have maxima six years apart, indicating that the effect is of the nature of a seasonal one. He notes that the material is scanty in the years when Jupiter was far south of the equator; that is, about 1865, 1877, 1889, 1901, 1913, 1925.
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Our Astronomical Column. Nature 126, 181 (1930). https://doi.org/10.1038/126181a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/126181a0