Jupiters Great Red Spot is disappearing The first sightings of a Great Red Spot on Jupiter were made in the 1660s by Robert Hooke and Giovanni Cassini. This feature – a monstrous, anticyclonic storm – was not studied in detail until the late 19th century. At that time, its diameter was found to be around 25,500 miles (41,000 km), large enough to swallow three entire planet Earths. On 25th February 1979, NASAs Voyager 1 spacecraft returned close-range photos of the planet. These revealed that its Great Red Spot had shrunk to 14,500 miles (23,335 km). Later studies by the Hubble Space Telescope, from the 1990s onwards, revealed that it was continuing to get smaller in size. By 2012, the rate of shrinkage was nearly 1000 kilometres per year and increasing. It was theorised that small eddies, observed feeding into the storm, were accelerating this change by altering the internal dynamics. The raging winds in this turbulent region were measured to be 384 mph (618 km/h), greatly surpassing even the strongest hurricanes on Earth. Another space probe – Juno – orbited the gas giant in 2016. This provided a greater understanding of the atmospheric composition, cloud motions, temperature, magnetosphere, gravity and other properties affecting the overall dynamics of Jupiter. Once again, the Great Red Spot was seen shrinking and losing momentum. This process would continue into the following decade. By the end of the 2020s, it has vanished entirely.** Yet another probe, Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE), arrives in 2030, just after its disappearance.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 07:37:25 +0000
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