Photo from open sources
The Big Red Spot is the largest atmospheric vortex found in the solar system. Scientists are watching for BKP for several centuries and notice how the whirlwind changes its sizes and shades.
The Big Red Spot is so huge that it can easily fit our Earth (see illustration below). The length of the gas vortex is 40-50 thousand kilometers, the width is more than 13 thousand. The height of the BKP above the surface of Jupiter is approximately 16.5 thousand kilometers. Wind speed inside a tornado exceeds 500 kilometers per hour.
A photo from open sources
Last July, the American spacecraft Juneau flew up to a record close distance to the Great Red Spot and got amazing shots of a monstrous atmospheric vortex. TO unfortunately, they may be the last photos of this alien miracle of nature. BKP, existing according to some estimates from the 1600s, it is likely to disappear soon. Earlier scientists assumed that it would live forever. To that there were good reasons. The fact is that the hot gases of Jupiter atmospheres constantly fuel a colossal whirlwind, due to which he in theory could exist as long as exists the atmosphere of the largest planet in the solar system.
However, it has now become clear that the Great Red Spot rapidly decreasing in size. 150 years ago tornado dimensions exceeded the size of the Earth by more than 4 times, but now the width the jupiterian vortex is gradually approaching the diameter of our “blue ball”. In addition, before BKP was constantly in moving around the equator of this huge planet, and now it’s just stands still. According to experts, within 10-20 the coming years, the vortex will take on a round shape, and then completely sink into in the fly. After the disappearance of the Great Red Spot, Jupiter will turn into a planet without a twist. However, this is not entirely true: in reality on this planet of all kinds of secrets and mysterious abundance of phenomena, it’s another thing to observe them as BKP, it is much more difficult for us earthlings …
Solar system jupiter
