The Great Red Spot on Jupiter has long been known about, but scientists have only recently learned how and when it formed. The giant storm responsible for the huge vortex at the edge of the solar system's largest planet is believed to have been going on for more than 300 years and is larger than the entire Earth, according to a report. Newsweek,
Astronomers have modeled how the storm started and lasted so long. They have concluded that it may not be as old as previously believed, according to research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Giovanni Cassini, who called it the permanent spot, is believed to have been the first to observe the Great Red Spot, a giant storm located in Jupiter's southern hemisphere. However, it wasn't until the 1830s that the red region was discovered once again and given the name Great Red Spot (GRS). Some speculate that Cassini may have already observed a huge storm on the planet's surface. To figure out how the spot might have evolved and persisted for so long, whether the permanent spot was an early form of the GRS, researchers examined observations of the spot made over several centuries, starting in the 1600s.
“From the size and velocity measurements, we concluded that it is very unlikely that the current GRS is the PS observed by GD Cassini. The PS probably disappeared between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, in which case, we can say that the Red Spot is now at least 190 years older,” study co-author and professor at the University of the Basque Country Agustín Sánchez-Lavega said in a statement.
In 1879 the spot was 24,233 miles wide, and currently it has gradually decreased to 8,700 miles in diameter, gradually taking on a round shape rather than an oval. The author added, “Various instruments on board the Juno mission in orbit around Jupiter have shown that the GRS is shallow and thin compared to its horizontal dimension, since vertically it is about 500 km long.”
After simulating the vortices of wind flowing in Jupiter's atmosphere, the researchers concluded that it was unlikely that the GRS was generated by the eruption of a massive superstorm, like those sometimes seen on Saturn. “We also think that if one of these unusual events had occurred, its consequences in the atmosphere would have been noticed and reported by astronomers at the time,” Mr. Sanchez-Lavega added.
The researchers found that under certain wind conditions, an extended storm cell could form, trapping the winds and creating a proto-GRS. This phenomenon, which has been observed in other Jupiter vortices in the past, would cause a shrinkage that is comparable to what we are seeing from the GRS over time.
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