JUPITER’S Great Red Spot seems to be on a cosmic diet, shrinking rapidly before our eyes.

Source

Astronome rs using the Hubble Space Telescope calculate that the spot, a giant long-lasting storm, is narrowing by about 933km a year, much faster than before. In the late 1800s the red spot was an oval 41,000 kilometres wide. Now it's a circle that's 16,500 kilometres across.

Wow. Cool.

So anyone know anything about what was really happening 400 years ago?

a reply to: onequestion

Do you have a source, link, pictures? I'd sure like some more information..

a reply to: SlyGuy

Fixed

Guess the storms got to end some time.

400 years ago Galileo first looked at Jupiter with a telescope. 400 years ago the spot was first seen.

It's a storm. Storms come and go.

originally posted by: Phage
400 years ago Galileo first looked at Jupiter with a telescope. 400 years ago the spot was first seen.

It's a storm. Storms come and go.

Seems people have a problem grasping sizes, and their corresponding time scale such a massive storm would entail.

We have been observing the world for such a ridiculously short amount of time, we forget that sometimes, until a storm that spans centuries in our own solar system starts to die down.

Something thats been there since we started using tools to look at the skies.

a reply to: Phage
Still remarkable though. I'm not jaded enough yet to think of a 400 year old storm, three times the size of the earth, as just a storm.

My guess is that its the remains of a large planetary fragment on its surface thats been slowly eroding away under the force of Jupiter's massive weather system. Heck, it may been a large planet that got gobbled up by Jupiter. Maybe thats what happened to Nibiru.

a reply to: rockintitz

The Great Red Spot is a storm. It is ALSO a endearing feature of a familiar object in near space, one which is the subject of some of the most awe inspiring images ever created, captured, or recorded.

However, as much as it is not just a storm, a storm it remains none the less.

One does not have to be jaded and cynical to appreciate that reality, just as one does not have to be a clueless hippy to appreciate that when it dies down, it will have a psychological impact on serious skywatchers, and casual readers of scientific news pertaining to our solar system alike.

originally posted by: CAPT PROTON
My guess is that its the remains of a large planetary fragment on its surface thats been slowly eroding away under the force of Jupiter's massive weather system. Heck, it may been a large planet that got gobbled up by Jupiter. Maybe thats what happened to Nibiru.

Please post this, over and over again.

Jupiter the solar systems great vacume cleaner

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