New Horizons Photographs Earth Sized Storm

Matthew Sparkes writes "The New Horizons spacecraft has taken the closest ever photos of Jupiter's Little Red Spot, which is actually a storm the size of Earth which has been raging since 2005. New Horizons targeted the storm when it passed Jupiter to gain speed for its journey to Pluto. The source of the red hue remains an open question. Some scientists believe hurricane-like winds lift material from beneath Jupiter's cloud-tops up to an altitude where radiation from the Sun can chemically alter it, producing the red colour. Scientists have estimated that winds in the storm were whipping around the atmosphere at 180 metres per second."

Comments

FYI

[StikyPad]

winds in the storm were whipping around the atmosphere at 180 metres per second.

Which, for those of us unaccustomed to describing velocity in the metric system, is 402 MPH.

I'll allow someone else figure out how many Libraries of Congress per fortnight that would be.

Picture

[T-Bone-T]

"Click to enlarge". Ok. That's all you got? I was hoping for larger.