Jupiter's Giant Red Spot: Juno's photos offer a spectacular close-up

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Jupiter's Giant Red Spot: Juno's photos offer a spectacular close-up
NASA's Juno spacecraft gets closer to Jupiter's iconic storm than ever before.
USA TODAY
 Susan Miller,  Published 6:25 p.m. ET July 12, 2017 | Updated 9:18 a.m. ET July 13, 2017



(Photo: NASA handout, AFP/Getty Images)



The photos are in, and they are out of this world.

NASA scientists and space junkies on Wednesday got a front-row-seat look at Jupiter's Giant Red Spot, a mysterious area that has mesmerized stargazers for hundreds of years.

The famed spot is a wild, swirling, 10,000-mile-wide storm that has been spinning and twisting across the largest planet in the solar system since at least 1830. 

On Monday, NASA's Juno spacecraft streaked across the monster storm, passing about 5,600 miles above the Giant Red Spot's clouds. The JunoCam and eight of the spacecraft's instruments were operational during the flyby to cull data, NASA said. The spectacular images were released Wednesday.

"My latest Jupiter science flyby is complete!" Juno's exuberant Twitter account proclaimed after the encounter. More images will be posted in the coming days.

Winds peak on the Giant Red Spot at about 400 mph, according to NASA. Scientists hope the newest images will offer insight into the force of the storm and perhaps shed light on what is behind the reddish hues. Images from NASA's Hubble Telescope two years ago showed that the spot was shrinking and becoming more circular — and the color was taking on an orange tint as well.   



This processed NASA handout image obtained July 12, 2017, shows the Great Red Spot on Jupiter taken by the Juno spacecraft. (Photo: NASA handout, AFP/Getty Images)


Jupiter, which has a mass one-thousandth of the sun and a diameter more than 11 times larger than Earth, is made up mostly of gas. A liquid ocean of hydrogen encircles its core, and the atmosphere consists mostly of hydrogen and helium, NASA says. Clouds often obscure views of the atmosphere. 

The $1 billion Juno probe entered orbit around Jupiter a year ago after traveling five years to the planet. The probe's mission is to learn more about the planet's origins, structure and magnetosphere. It will burn up in the atmosphere in 2018.



This combination of pictures created on July 12, 2017, shows a NASA handout image of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. (Photo: NASA handout, AFP/Getty Images)


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