NASA's Hubble captures crisp new portrait of Jupiter as Great Red Spot plows into storm

NASA has released new photos of Jupiter taken by advanced Hubble Telescope on August 25 when planet was 406 million miles from Earth. Hubble’s sharp view is giving researchers an updated wear report on monster planet’s turbulent atmosphere, including a remarkable new storm brewing, and a cousin of famous Great Red Spot region gearing up to change colour – again.

A unique and exciting detail of Hubble’s snapshot appears at mid-rrn latitudes as a bright, white, stretched-out storm traveling around planet at 350 miles per hour (560 kilometers per hour). This single plume erupted on August 18 – and ground-based observers have discovered two more that appeared later at same latitude.

While it’s common for storms to pop up in this region every six years or so, often with multiple storms at once, timing of Hubble observations is perfect for showing structure in wake of disturbance, during early sts of its evolution. Trailing behind plume are small, rounded features with complex "red, white, and blue" colours in Hubble’s ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light im.

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A cousin to Great Red Spot

Hubble shows that Great Red Spot, rolling counterclockwise in planet’s sourn hemisphere, is plowing into clouds ahead of it, forming a cascade of white and beige ribbons. Great Red Spot is currently an exceptionally rich red colour, with its core and outermost band appearing deeper red.

Researchers say Great Red Spot w measures about 9,800 miles across, big eugh to swallow Earth. super-storm is still shrinking as ted in telescopic observations dating back to 1930, but reason for its dwindling size is a complete mystery.

Ar feature researchers are ticing has changed is Oval BA, nicknamed by astromers as Red Spot Jr., which appears just below Great Red Spot in this im. For past few years, Red Spot Jr. has been fading in colour to its original shade of white after appearing red in 2006. However, w core of this storm appears to be darkening slightly. This could hint that Red Spot Jr. is on its way to turning to a colour more similar to its cousin once again.

Hubble’s im shows that Jupiter is clearing out its higher altitude white clouds, especially along planet’s equator, where an orangish hydrocarbon smog wraps around it.

icy moon Europa, thought to hold potential ingredients for life, is visible to left of gas giant.

This Hubble im is part of yearly maps of entire planet taken as part of Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy program, or OPAL. program provides annual Hubble global views of outer planets to look for changes in ir storms, winds, and clouds.

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