Jupiter’s Doomed Superstorm

It’s no secret: Jupiter is big. Not only can 1,000 earths fit inside of Jupiter, but it’s the oldest and largest planet in our solar system. It was created from the leftover dust and particles that formed the sun, giving Jupiter its gaseous atmosphere and legendary rings. Though, just as legendary is Jupiter’s notorious blemish: it’s big, stormy red spot, twice the size of earth. 

The Great Spot

The Great Red Spot (GRS), the beloved icon of Jupiter, is seen everywhere from science fair projects to detailed imagings. Unlike Earth’s moon’s “spots”, the GRS isn’t a crater, but a 10,159 mile-wide storm that’s been raging for over 400 years.

Jupiter’s stripes are made up of gasses- such as sulfur and phosphorus- which rise from the planet’s interior to the atmosphere where they are carried along by the planet’s fast rotation and separated into belts. 

Therefore, the GRS disrupts these elongated clouds with its 400 mph winds, double the speed of the fastest ever recorded hurricane winds on earth. These winds break up the gaseous chemicals in the air, a process theorized by scientists to give the GRS its ruddy color. 

Unfortunately, the GRS is challenging to study and many of its characteristics continue to remain a mystery. Not only does Jupiter’s distance from earth minimize collectable data, but its higher atmospheres can obscure the lower ones, making accurate scans below the clouds challenging. 

How has it changed:

Jupiter’s red spot has shrunk by an estimated 60% since Voyager two traveled to Jupiter in 1979. Its current size is at its smallest since human observation began, and is over 15,000 miles smaller than an 1800s measurement. In fact, the Hubble Telescope has found the GRS is shrinking by 580 miles each year and has been slowly changing shape from an oval to a circle. Other powerful telescopes have seen pieces of the GRS breaking off and dissipating into the atmosphere. Likely as a result, the spot has been moving in a jiggling pattern across the surface of Jupiter.

Previously, in the cases of Jupiter’s Southern Equitorial Belt, Red Spot Junior, and Oval BC; storms on Jupiter have disappeared, merged, and grown, proving that Jupiter’s climatic situation is highly variable to change given time. 

Why it’s Changing: 

Unfortunately, due to struggles trying to map and graph changes in the GRS along with other climatic conditions, it’s hard to know why exactly it’s changed. Scientists continue to be largely divided on the issue, but here are their main theories: 

New wind streams are feeding into storms 

One possible explanation is the prevalence of many small eddies on the surface of Jupiter feeding into the GRS. Some theorize these eddies are changing the internal dynamics of the storm and dissipating it by sapping the vortex’s momentum. 

GRS’s smaller internal storms are shrinking 

A more recent analysis of the storm suggests a different answer: the storms inside of the GRS are shrinking. A 2024 study from Yale ran a simulation which determined that the prevalence of smaller storms inside the GRS could feed into the storm and change the GRS's size and patterns, similar to how the previous theory suggested eddies could do the same. However, the growth of these mini storms could also explain the fluctuations in shape of the spot better than the stream theory. 

In the end, it comes down to Jupiter’s winds, storms or streams. Whether growing, changing, or disappearing, they’re permanently altering the livelihood of Jupiter’s GRS. 

What will happen to it:

While the future of the GRS is still largely uncertain, astronomers have determined two possibilities for the fate of our beloved icon. 

It stabilizes

Sadly, its stabilization is less common than disappearance. Though the rate at which it may disappear varies and it’s possible the storm will stabilize, even gain size, in the process. As previously mentioned, there are many factors at play that could affect the storm either positively or negatively, so it’s imperative we continue monitoring and researching the spot for developments. 

It disappears 

The GRS has encountered a phenomenon nicknamed “flaking” where storms lose pieces of mass over time. Additionally, its wind patterns are unstable, suggesting declining power. Currently, astronomers can’t be certain why due to limited technology, but from what they know, they believe the beloved red spot is doomed to continue declining in power, even if over a long period of time, and disappear. When? Some predict decades while others centuries. With Jupiter’s turbulent winds, it’s also possible another storm could take its place and be the next GRS. 

Our knowledge of Jupiter is extraordinary for our time; mapping technology, infrared lights, radio images, telescopes, and more; and yet, there is still a lack of definite information about the notorious storm. What we do know is this: it’s shrinking. Scientists are still trying to discover why and are making breakthroughs every day, but, sadly, its fate is bleak. For millennia, Jupiter’s storm has been a staple in our skies, and while it may disappear, it has and will be a valuable method of research for the study of superstorms to be applied to our own atmosphere. And who knows? Maybe there will be a new, bolder storm to take its place. 

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