For almost 150 years, when humans have
looked at Jupiter, they’ve seen a raging Vortex larger than the Earth itself
swirling with layers of wind and gas. The Great Red Spot. a high-pressure storm that
has been brewing on Jupiter for hundreds of years. In 2017, observations by NASA’s Juno
spacecraft found that the root of the Great Red Spot extends 50 to 100 times
deeper than the deepest ocean on Earth. And it has no plans of winding down anytime soon. In the late 1880s, the Great
Red Spot measured as wide as 35,000 miles, or around four times the diameter
of Earth. Then, by the time the Voyager spacecraft Made it’s journey to the gas giant, a century
later, the storm appeared to be about twice The width of Earth. This led scientists to debate
whether the Great Red Spot was shrinking in size. In May 2019, an amateur astronomer
spotted something unusual about The Great Red Spot. A blade-like shape
seemed to be flaking off from the vortex, Which led some to believe that it
would soon disintegrate into oblivion. So now, a team of scientists have discovered
that not only does the storm live on, But it's winds are actually picking up speed. What is fueling the Great Red Spot?
And how is it maintaining its energy? NASA’s Juno probe continues to
study the giant planet and map Its interior structure while taking
stunning photos of the world as well. It can provide us perhaps the best vistas of
the storm when aligned just right. Monitoring Will also continue by the Hubble Space
Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, Which already took a stunning portrait
of Jupiter a couple of months ago. One of the benefits of the James Webb
Telescope, and of space telescopes in General, is that they can observe in the
infrared part of the spectrum. Because Of interference from Earth's atmosphere,
our ground-based telescopes cannot achieve This feat. Hence, these Jupiter photos
are literally taken in a "new" light. You can see auroras, or beautiful light shows
that appear in the sky, in Jupiter's atmosphere. There are crackling storms, sweeping winds and
unimaginable heights and lows of temperature. Two upcoming missions — ESA’s Jupiter Icy
Moons Explorer (JUICE) and NASA’s Europa Clipper — will orbit Jupiter while getting
unprecedented views of Jupiter’s intriguing Moons. It may, in the process, get more than
a few good glimpses of the great red spot. The largest planet in the Solar System,
Jupiter has an exceptional gravitational pull, Which helps protect the Earth
from similar incidents, but This same gravitational force can
also cause accidents to happen. An amateur astronomer caught Jupiter in trouble
as a large object smacked into the gas giant,
Creating a small “poof” in
the planet’s atmosphere. Yes, Accidents happen, even in space.
The brief footage shows an object Crashing straight into the planet,
leaving a small impact behind. Planetary astronomers are not quite sure
whether the object is an asteroid or a comet. But don’t worry, Jupiter has actually seen
worse. The largest planet in the Solar System often attracts this kind of scuffle
due to its exceptional gravitational pull, Which helps protect the
Earth from similar incidents. “We do know that it can't have been
too big — images of Jupiter since The impact doesn't reveal an impact scar,
although the impact flash looked enormous, It's not a 1:1 indicator of how big the
impact event itself was.” Said Paul Byrne. The object could have been a few tens to
perhaps a few hundreds of meters in size. So this small object probably exploded
in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere since it Lacked enough size and speed to really
pierce through and leave behind a scar. Due to its humongous size and its orbit,
which puts it close to the asteroid belt, Jupiter often gets smacked by these
objects. The most famous incident Took place in 1994 when fragments of the
Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet collided with Jupiter. Astronomers believe that Jupiter’s sheer
massive size actually deflects some of These impacts from the rest of the Solar
System’s planets by taking them on itself. As the largest and most massive planet around
the Sun, Jupiter's gravity is so strong that it May actually fling some of these flying space
objects outside of the Solar System before They get closer to Earth. In fact, some scientists
think that’s why life on Earth was able to thrive. Jupiter then, is like the older kid protecting
the underdogs from the bullies on the playground Of the Solar System. One that takes its share
of hits along the way, but what do I know?
