14 DAY TRIAL // Dubbed by some astronomers as Red Spot Jr., the storm spot formed after three white oval-shaped storms merged during 1998 to 2000. The Great Red Spot has been discovered by Huygens four centuries ago, but the progenitors of this second giant storm, or at least one of them, can be traced back only 90 years.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has now taken the most detailed view yet of Red Spot Jr. This is for the first time in history that astronomers have the opportunity to witness the birth of a new red spot on one of the giant gas planets. The storm is roughly one-half the diameter of its bigger and legendary cousin, the Great Red Spot and researchers have suggested that it may be related to a possible major climate change in Jupiter's atmosphere.
Red Spot Jr. has been followed by both amateur and professional astronomers for the past few months but Hubble's new images provide a much higher level of detail. These pictures have comparable resolution to those taken by NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft as they flew by Jupiter a quarter-century ago.
Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon-Miller (Goddard Space Flight Center) and I. de Pater (University of California, Berkeley)