Astronomers don't know why Jupiter's iconic Great Red Spot has been gradually shrinking since the 1800s — or why the downsizing has accelerated during the past two years.

Update: On May 15th, NASA released newly taken images of the Great Red Spot (at bottom below) to show its declining size since 1995.

Thanks to the planet's immensity, seeing Jupiter through a telescope can be very satisfying. Its two main cloud belts appear in most any backyard setup, and with even a modest aperture you can probably glimpse the planet's enduring and enormous Great Red Spot.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot is shrinking
Compare the size (and color) of Jupiter's Great Red Spot as drawn by Thomas Gwyn Elger in November 1881 (left) and as imaged by Voyager 1 (right) 98 years later. South is up, to match the inverted view in many astronomical telescopes.
Elger engraving: BAA / Voyager image: NASA

Or at least that used to be the case. In recent decades the color of this iconic, long-lived storm has waxed and waned, sometimes taking on a hue almost indistinguishable from that of the tawny-white clouds around it. And, redness aside, the Red Spot isn't nearly as "great" as it used to be — it's actually getting smaller. My S&T colleague Camille Carlisle wrote about the spot's tightening waistline in 2012, and I offered a report about the downsizing trend a decade ago.

In fact, astronomers know that the Great Red Spot has been shrinking for more than a century. In the late 1800s the feature was nearly 35° wide in longitude, which corresponds to about 40,000 km (25,000 miles), or roughly three times Earth's diameter. By 1979, when Voyagers 1 and 2 flew past Jupiter at close range, the longitudinal extent had shrunk to 21° (about 25,000 km), though its width from top to bottom remained essentially unchanged at about 12,000 km.

No one has been paying closer attention to this situation than British observer Damien Peach. His exceptionally detailed images have chronicled the spot's obvious shape-shifting for more than a decade.

Astrophotographer Damien Peach has plotted the Great Red Spot's changing size as measured in his images. Note the abrupt change since 2012.
John Rogers / BAA

The spot's contraction continues — but the big surprise, as the graph at right shows, is that the downsizing has accelerated quite a bit during the past two years. Now the iconic vortex is smaller and rounder than ever before. According to John Rogers, who coordinates Jupiter observations for the British Astronomical Association, early this year the Great Red Spot spanned just 13.6° in latitude, a length of only 15,900 km.

Other Changes in the Great Red Spot

That's not the only curiosity. Usually the spot drifts in longitude (relative the planet's interior rotation), but recently the meandering has dropped to just 1.4° per month, Rogers reports, which he terms "unusually slow." And it's taken on a distinctly orange color.

Meanwhile, the spot's rotation rate continues to vary a lot. The Voyagers found a period of 6 to 8 days, corresponding to mean wind velocities around the rim of up to 120 meters per second (270 miles per hour). In 2000, NASA's Galileo orbiter looked on as the GRS raced around at a record-setting 165 m/s (370 mph). This past year observers found a period of just 3.6 days, and the outer winds were clocked at 144 m/s.

Jupiter image by Damien Peach in February 2014
The Great Red Spot looked rather circular and had a distinct orange hue on February 15, 2014. Note the small dark spots nearby (arrowed) that might be supplying the huge storm with rotational energy.
Damien Peach

The Great Red Spot is a high-pressure feature sandwiched between the dark, turbulent South Equatorial Belt passing westward to its north and a jetstream of the South Temperate Belt sliding eastward to its south. These opposing motions cause the GRS to roll counterclockwise between them like an enormous ball bearing. But it's unclear, despite decades of intensive study, where the spot gets the energy to sustain itself.

Nor is it clear why the circumstances are changing so rapidly. Rogers suspects the Red Spot might be feeding on a long string of smaller dark spots that have been moving past it since mid-2013. He says the barrage of spots resulted from the collision of a dark segment of the South Temperate Belt with a large, long-lived reddish oval known as BA.

"These little spots have their own spin," notes Amy Simon-Miller (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center). When they slip past the Great Red Spot, she explains, they often get pulled into the storm's southeast quadrant. "They can either add to the GRS's angular momentum, or subtract from it, depending which way they turn."

Hubble to the Rescue?

Great Red Spot shrinkage from 1995 to 2014
A trio of Hubble Space Telescope images shows the dramatic decline in the Great Red Spot's girth since 1995.
NASA / ESA / A. Miller

Unfortunately, Jupiter is quickly sliding westward in the evening sky, so telescopic observers won't be able to follow the planet for much longer. But Simon-Miller managed to snag some time on the Hubble Space Telescope to check out the situation. Three days ago her team acquired two sets of images, timed 10 hours (one rotation of Jupiter) apart, taken with the Wide Field Camera 3.

It's the first time that Hubble has been turned toward the giant planet since 2012. "Our data look great!" she tells me. The images have a resolution of about 150 km, enough detail to create a map of wind vectors along and near the spot's outer margin. A fuller analysis is weeks away, but a quick check confirms the faster-than-usual shrinkage that amateurs have been reporting.

Simon-Miller hopes the Hubble images have captured the interaction between the Great Red Spot and the small spots slipping past to its south. That, she says, would be "a major achievement in understanding the energetic feeding of the GRS and constraining the mechanism that governs its long life."

Meanwhile, it's not too late to view Jupiter with your backyard telescope. Don't forget to use our handy Java app to determine the best times to view the Great Red Spot. (Note: free registration on SkyandTelescope.com is required.)

Comments


Image of Mick-Snyder

Mick-Snyder

April 25, 2014 at 4:54 am

"Thanks to the planet's enormity, seeing Jupiter through a telescope can be very satisfying"

I think you mean "great size", not "enormity"?

Because "enormity" means "the great or extreme scale, seriousness, or extent of something perceived as bad or morally wrong".

Or do you see Jupiter as morally wrong? 🙂

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J. Kelly Beatty

April 25, 2014 at 8:23 am

hi, Mick... thanks for the comment. "enormity" can have either meaning, but I went ahead and substituted "immensity".

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April 25, 2014 at 11:57 am

I blame "global warming".

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Greg Rose

April 25, 2014 at 12:22 pm

Red spot is dying maybe? I hope not!!

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bwana

April 25, 2014 at 5:39 pm

Every storm, even big ones on Jupiter, eventually come to an end...

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Jay Schufman

April 25, 2014 at 6:25 pm

Not to be flippant, I consider myself a student of Asimov and Clarke, but has anyone considered a Red Algæ Bloom; they do come and go!

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April 28, 2014 at 3:52 pm

As a "street" telescopist in Baltimore, I'm constantly amazed at how many members of the
passerby public ask. "Can you see the 'storm' on Jupiter?" If the public knows nothing else
about astronomy, it knows of the GRS! Of course, with my 8", normally at 80X, if there
it's only a small irregularity in the SEB. If I happen to spot it, I up the X, but it's still not
that great. When asked, my usual response is because Jupiter spins in 9h55m, it's visible
for only about 50-mins. every 10-hrs or so, so you have to hit it just right. I also say it's faded
to a pale pink and hard to see in any case. I don't think have seen it this whole Jupiter season,
and with J now quite diminished in size, I don't expect. to.
P.S. Thanks S&T for the GRS update.

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April 28, 2014 at 5:11 pm

I dont know much aboutthe planets. But I think that tgd idea of it being a storm and its ending makes sense. Who knows? Perhaps global warming does have something to do with it. Our poison gases go up into the atmosphere. Who knows.

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