NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured a new highly-detailed image of Jupiter. The new image clearly shows the giant planet’s Great Red Spot as well as other features that can be spotted from Space.

Jupiter’s latest photo was captured by the orbiting telescope Hubble on June 27. It was taken as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy Program, which aims to showcase yearly photos of other planets to monitor changes in their atmospheric features.

Probably the most noticeable feature of the planet is the Great Red Spot, which is a massive storm system that moves counterclockwise across the bands of clouds on Jupiter. According to NASA, the Great Red Spot is bigger than Earth.

“The Great Red Spot is a towering structure shaped like a wedding cake, whose upper haze layer extends more than 3 miles higher than clouds in other areas,” NASA said in a statement.

“The gigantic structure, with a diameter slightly larger than Earth’s, is a high-pressure wind system called an anticyclone that has been slowly downsizing since the 1800s,” the agency added. “The reason for this change in size is still unknown.”

Aside from the Great Red Spot, streaks of clouds with different colors can also be clearly seen in Hubble’s photo. The colors of the clouds, which move in opposite directions, are caused by the varying pressure in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Those with lighter colors are thicker and flow at a much higher level in the atmosphere than the dark ones.

Another striking image spotted by Hubble on Jupiter is the planet’s developing cyclone, which appears as an elongated feature right below the Great Red Spot. According to NASA, this cyclone produces winds that move in the opposite direction from the Great Red Spot. It is only one of the numerous cyclones spotted in Jupiter.

“A worm-shaped feature located below the Great Red Spot is a cyclone, a vortex around a low-pressure area with winds spinning in the opposite direction from the Red Spot,” NASA stated.

“Researchers have observed cyclones with a wide variety of different appearances across the planet,” the agency added. “The two white oval-shaped features are anticyclones, like small versions of the Great Red Spot.”

Jupiter
This new Hubble Space Telescope view of Jupiter, taken on June 27, 2019, reveals the giant planet's trademark Great Red Spot, and a more intense color palette in the clouds swirling in Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere than seen in previous years. The colors, and their changes, provide important clues to ongoing processes in Jupiter's atmosphere. The new image was taken in visible light as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy program, or OPAL. The program provides yearly Hubble global views of the outer planets to look for changes in their storms, winds and clouds. Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 observed Jupiter when the planet was 400 million miles from Earth, when Jupiter was near "opposition" or almost directly opposite the Sun in the sky. NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center) and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley)
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