Over the last few days , the unskilled astronomer communityhas been buzzingwith news : the Great Red Spot , Jupiter ’s humungous storm , looks like unraveling .
Sky observers worldwide have reported a retentive stream of gas stretch from the Great Red Spot . Infrared observationstaken by Clyde Foster from Centurion , South Africa , that focalise on the planet ’s methane expelling divulge a hook - like structure of petrol . The structure , extending from the westerly lobe , is likely or so the same size as the Great Red Spot , which is 16,350 kilometers ( 10,160 miles ) in width .
Astronomers ( professional and non - professional ) have been observing the gas giant in many different wavelengths . This allow them to see various elements and structures within the clouds . While the methane observations show the extended come-on , photos at different wavelengths do n’t show the same structure . This advise movements within the turbulent Jovian atmospheric state affect its feature in different ways .
We have fuck for a few years that the Great Red Spot is a complex and chaotic scheme . It is the largest anti - cyclonal violent storm in the Solar System and could well go our planet inside it . The violent storm has swirling structures within and waves that extend from the eastern side . Observations in 2017 fromthe Gemini Observatoriesspotted a much smaller bait - comparable construction stretch along out west from the Spot .
Given the location , what we see today could be the continuation of what we see in 2017 or have the same origin . We looked online for methaneobservationsof the Great Red Spot in 2018 , but we could n’t find one that clearly showed whether or not the 2017 crotchet was still there .
clear up observance might come from NASA ’s Juno spacecraft currently orbiting Jupiter , whose master mission is to study the planet ’s clouds and upper ambience . The space investigation is in an elongate cranial orbit around the gas titan , which hire it near to the planet every 52 days . The next perijove is in a workweek ( May 29 ) and may be in the correct position to canvas these change .
The Great Red Spot has survive for up to 350 years and is actively shrinking and deepen . It is now less than half the breadth it used to be a century ago .
