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Great Red Spot

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Great Red Spot

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Jupiter's Great Red Spot (top right) and the surrounding region. Below the spot is one of the large …
(credit: NASA/JPL)
Storm on the planet Jupiter that moves in longitude but remains centred at about latitude 22° south. A high-pressure centre, it is oval, measuring about 7,500 mi (12,000 km) north to south, roughly the diameter of Earth, and nearly twice as wide east to west. Its discovery in the 1660s is attributed to Gian Domenico Cassini or Robert Hooke. Its colour, whose cause is unknown, varies from brick-red to brownish; it tends to change colour over a period of years.



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A storm the size of two Earths, the Great Red Spot has been raging for more than 300 years.
A gigantic anticyclone, the great red spot is a high-pressure system that dredges up material from the lower levels of the atmosphere.
The highest wind speeds in the smaller, more recent storm have reached 640 kilometers per hour, the same as those of the planet's long-observed Great Red Spot.
 
 
 
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