greatredspot
Latest
NASA releases close-up photos of Jupiter's Great Red Spot
Anybody who's taken a look at images of Jupiter has seen its Great Red Spot, the planet's massive storm that's been raging for the past 350 years. This is the first time we're seeing it this close, though, and it's all thanks to NASA's Juno spacecraft. The probe flew 5,600 miles above the spot on Monday, the closest it's even been to the planet's iconic feature, while all eight of its instruments collected data. Now, NASA has released the first batch of close-up images taken by JunoCam, showing the ancient storm in greater detail than we've ever seen before.
NASA seeks Jupiter's secrets with historic spacecraft flyover
Every planet in our solar system is famous for something. Saturn has its rings, Mars has its soil, Uranus has that unfortunate name, and Jupiter has the Great Red Spot: a titanic storm that has been spinning for more than 350 years. Though we've peered at the distant gas giant's iconic feature since the 1830s, we still know little about its inner workings. That could change on Monday night, when the Juno spacecraft flies directly over the Great Red Spot for the first time in human history.
NASA’s Juno mission discovers Jupiter is really weird
NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter has sent back a ton of data about our solar system's largest planet. The results from the orbiter's first big data-collection pass, which took place last August, are finally in and it's clear that Juno's five-year journey to the planet was worth the trip.
Researchers believe Jupiter's Red Spot is heated by thunder
Despite its distance from the sun, Jupiter is a surprisingly hot planet with temperatures ranging around 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit in the middle latitudes. According to new findings published today in the journal Nature, temperatures over the planet's Great Red Spot can range even higher -- up to about 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1,300 degrees Celsius. And the researchers behind the new study believe they may have finally figured what's feeding the extreme temperatures around the 10,000-mile-wide storm.
