NASA’s Juno space probe recently captured an incredible image of two powerful storms brewing near Jupiter’s iconic Red Spot during a recent flyby in late December. It was approximately 23,000 to 34,000 miles from the top of the planet’s clouds at the time. “Two massive storms in Jupiter’s turbulent southern hemisphere appear in this new image captured during my latest flyby of the planet. The storm reached its current size when three smaller spots collided and merged in the year 2000. The Great Red Spot, which is about twice as wide as Oval BA, may have formed from the same process centuries ago,” said NASA. Read more for a video and additional information.
Juno’s mission is to basically measure Jupiter’s composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere, while also searching for clues about how the planet formed, including whether it has a rocky core, the amount of water present within the deep atmosphere, mass distribution, and its deep (up to 384 mph) winds. This is the second spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, after the nuclear powered Galileo orbiter, which orbited between the years of 1995 and 2003.
