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| Great Red Spot |
The gas giant Jupiter is by far one of the solar system's most incredible planet. Everything about this world is gigantic at its equator it is a colossal 88,846 miles in diameter it has 2.5 times more mass than all the other planets in the solar system combined and its magnetic field is 20 thousand times stronger than the Earth's.
It is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium which are the same light gases that make up a star such as the Sun and it boasts a distinctive atmosphere of swirling bands of clouds that hide its extreme interior but one of the most extraordinary features on this giant gas planet is undoubtedly the great red spot cyclones on earth can grow to over a thousand miles in diameter whipping up devastating wind speeds that can reach above 200 miles per hour.
Storms as these are capable of destroying entire cities in a matter of hours but Jupiter's colossal storm makes even the most powerful cyclone ever recorded on earth look weak. The Great Red Spot is a giant anticyclone that rotates counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere of the planet and it is so big it could engulf the entire earth like a tropical cyclone. T
The great red spot Center would be relatively calm but further out the winds would rage at speeds of up to 425 miles per hour. If we could experience the interior of the outer edge of this storm it would be devastating beyond belief. The storm has been raging for possibly more than 300 years but nobody knows when it first appeared. The earliest observations of a massive red spot on the face of Jupiter dates back to the 1600s but astronomers are unsure whether this is the same red spot that we see today. The giant storm is located between to furious jet streams that are blowing bands of clouds in opposite directions at huge speeds trapping the Red Storm like a spinning wheel caught between two conveyor belts. Because Jupiter is a gas planet without a solid surface like the earth anticyclones can continue to grow never becoming weakened by land. Smaller rotating storms moving along these wild jet streams have also been observed being consumed by the Great Red Spot potentially increasing its size and energy factors. Such as these are thought to play a part in allowing such a massive storm to exist for hundreds of years but what actually drives the Great Red Spot is still a mystery scientists studying the storm have also noticed that it is shrinking in size while becoming rounder when the Great Red Spot was first discovered it was large enough to engulf around three planet Earth's stretching more than an estimated 25,000 miles but now it is only around 10,000 miles wide. According to scientists if it continues to shrink at its current rate it will become more circular resulting in its being less stable and possibly disappearing within the next 20 years. One day the most recognizable feature on Jupiter the Great Red Spot may not be all that great as it slowly dwindled in size but at least we were able to observe one of the solar system's colossal wonders.