Friday, May 16, 2014

Jupiter's Great Red Spot Shrinking



Space.com is reporting that Jupiter's great red spot appears to be shrinking!  This observation is based on photos taken by the Hubble space telescope since the early 90s, as well as observations from amateur astronomers.

While the storm has been observations from  the late 1800s estimated  the spot at 25,500 miles across.  A century later, the Voyager spacecraft flybys  in 1979 revealed the spot had shrunk to 14,500 miles.


Images from Hubble showed in images taken in 1995, the storm shrinking to 13,020 miles across. By 2009, the Red Spot had diminished to 11,130 miles.

Read the complete Space.com article HERE

3 comments:

kallamis said...

Everything has it's time, and everything ends. Especially storms. They all manage to blow themselves out eventually. It had to happen sometime. But it is still there for a long time to come. Still plenty of time to get there and do a little wind board surfing. Of which I will be a spectator of and not a participant. Not in those winds, though if you could survive it there, that would be one of the most amazing rides in history.
Wind boarding on Jupiter. Well, we see where my mind is of to today.

kallamis said...

off to, not "Of to" I am starting to hate this type if I feel like it keyboard.

Beam Me Up said...

Just imagine the powered exoskeleton you would have to have. I would imagine that the "suit" is what would be surfed. But what would be used for attitude control. Would be a wild sport for sure