NASA on
Wednesday released a series of stunning images of a raging storm on Jupiter,
known as the Great Red Spot, snapped earlier this week as an unmanned probe
zipped
by.
The US space
agency’s Juno spacecraft flew over the storm late Monday, offering humanity’s
closest look yet at the iconic feature of our solar system’s largest planet.
“For
hundreds of years scientists have been observing, wondering and theorizing
about Jupiter’s Great Red Spot,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator
from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
“Now we have
the best pictures ever.”
The pictures
can be viewed at https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing
Scientists
hope to learn more about what drives the storm, and Bolton said it would take
some time to analyze the data captured by Juno’s eight instruments as it passed
over the tempest a height of 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers).
The Great
Red Spot measured 10,159 miles (16,350 kilometers) wide on April 3 of this
year, which is 1.3 times the size of the Earth.
It has been
monitored since 1830 and has possibly existed for more than 350 years.
Juno
launched in 2011 and began orbiting Jupiter last year. Its next flyby is
planned for early September.
“These
highly-anticipated images of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot are the ‘perfect storm’
of art and science,” said Jim Green, NASA’s director of planetary science.
“We are
pleased to share the beauty and excitement of space science with everyone.”
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