Jupiter growing a second red spot
Jupiter seems to be growing a second red spot as you can see in the image above. The official name is Oval BA, but Red Jr seems to be a better choice. Red Jr first appeared in the year 2000 when three smaller spots collided and merged. It is the same color as the original red spot which is at least 300 years old and is twice as wide as the Earth. Red Jr. wasn’t always red:
“The oval was white in November 2005, it slowly turned brown in December 2005, and red a few weeks ago,” reports Go. “Now it is the same color as the Great Red Spot!”
Why it’s red, no one is precisely sure. The theory goes that the storm is so powerful, it has picked up material from deep beneath Jupiter’s clouds and lifts it to high altitudes where UV radiation produces the brick color by some unknown chemical reaction. Raising such material would require a tremendous amount of energy: the Great Red Spot towers some 5 miles (8km) above the surrounding clouds. It maybe be that Red Jr. has become powerful enough to do the same.
[tags]Great Red Spot, Oval BA, Jupiter, solar system[/tags]
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