New observations of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter have revealed that the planet’s atmosphere above and around the infamous storm is surprisingly interesting and active. This graphic shows the region observed by Webb — first its location on a NIRCam image of the whole planet (left), and the region itself (right), imaged by Webb’s Near-InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec).
The University of Arizona-backed James Webb Space Telescope is bringing scientists new information about one of the solar system's most fascinating features.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot has amazed scientists since the 17th century. UA planetary scientist Bill Hubbard describes it as a high-pressure system in the giant planet's cloud deck that observers have watched grow and shrink over the last several decades.
"It's a semi-permanent feature of Jupiter but it definitely changes over time," he said. "It's still a mystery as to what it is."
A recently-published article using data collected by the Webb telescope notes the discovery of what scientists think are gravity waves in the region of the Great Red Spot.
The most recent images have also shown the Great Red Spot isn't as big as it used to be. Observers say it was once the size of 3 Earths put together. Now it can barely fit one.
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