#red spot

[nemfrog]

"Jupiter photographed at the Lick Observatory. Observe on the left the Great Red Spot, which first appeared in 1878."

Astronomy in a nutshell. 1912. Internet Archive

[mast3r-rainb0w]

Cool Spot's Magical Soda Bubbles by Mast3r-Rainb0w

This old 7-UP mascot may have appeared in the commercials, but he actually also had some extremely niche games back in the early 1990's, most prominently on 16-bit consoles such as the the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. Yes, while Cool Spot was part of the trend where food/drink mascots starred in their own games at the time, the game in itself is a relatively decent platformer, and I actually recommend it! Enjoy my fanart I made here!

[plighthouse]

[thebaronofvenicebeach]

"Behind the spit-shine gloss of the Hollywood dream factory, there's another city churning out a vile by-product for the the furtive consumption of a debauched audience."

[fluttershynegre]

[zespaceblog]

Jupiter and the Giant Red Spot

In 1665, Geovanni Cassini turned his telescope to Jupiter, and drew a series of sketches over the following years, it was the first recorded potential evidence of a spot on the surface of the planet.

It was another 170 years before it was again illustrated by the German Astronomer Samuel Schwabe, although sadly I was unable to locate any of his drawings to add to this blog, but it began the start of more regular tracking of the surface of Jupiter, leading up to the first photographic evidence in 1879.

It may surprise that people were taking pictures of space in the 1800's, however it was a new and growing interest, 22 years earlier attempts had been made which were not successful.

The bottom line is, the red spot appears to have been part of Jupiter for at least 150 years, if not 350+, so what is it ?

While Jupiter is predominantly made of Hydrogen and Helium, the clouds we see are made of different layers of elements such as ammonia Ice, Ammonium Hydrosulfide and further still water ice and vapour.

The planet is hot inside due to the massive pressure of it's total mass crushing down, so much so, it's likely the hydrogen turns into a liquid and even towards a solid. This heat and the fast spin of Jupiter (rotating every 10 hours) creates huge windows of 540km/hr (335 mph) driving and feeding the storms.

So the different colours are merely the different layers of the atmosphere which are peeled back or results of plumbs of heated gas from inside the planet, erupting almost like gaseous volcanos around the planet.

So next time you go out and there's a storm, just remember, this beauty has been going on for centuries !

Finally, how long will the storm last ? will there every be a day when we look at Jupiter without it ?

Well, the truth is, scientists aren't exactly certain about how long it will last, other than, there will come a time when it doesn't, and no doubt, when another takes it's place (although how common this is, we really have no idea, as there is no comparison to be made elsewhere).

What we do know is the shape, speed are changing, some believe it's heading towards it's disintegration, while others believe not.

ps.. the title picture to this was taken by Voyager 1 !! and of course, re-processed very recently to combine a variety of images to make the one above.

[evilhorse]

Take me to the Red Spot!

[finsterhund]

love one this because

IT’S TRUE.

Red Spot being in his world of average size for his species, the thought that he’s “too big” is something he’s still getting used to.