The observations reveal that the reddest color of the Great Red Spot corresponds to a warm core within the otherwise cold storm system, and images show dark lanes at the edge of the storm where gases are descending into the deeper regions of the planet. These types of data, detailed in Icarus, give scientists a sense of the circulation patterns within the solar system’s best-known storm system."This is our first detailed look inside the biggest storm of the solar system,” said coauthor Glenn Orton, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We once thought the Great Red Spot was a plain old oval without much structure, but these new results show that it is, in fact, extremely complicated."Sky gazers have been observing the Great Red Spot in one form or another for hundreds of years, with continuous observations of its current shape dating back to the 19th century. The spot, which is a cold region averaging about 110 Kelvin is so wide about three Earths could fit inside its boundaries.The thermal images were obtained by 3 giant 8-meter telescopes—the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, the US-led Gemini Observatory telescope in Chile, and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan’s Subaru telescope in Hawaii—have provided an unprecedented level of resolution and extended the coverage provided by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s.Together with observations of the deep cloud structure by the 3-meter NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii, the level of thermal detail observed from these giant observatories is comparable to visible-light images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope for the first time.One of the most intriguing findings shows the most intense orange-red central part of the spot is about 3 to 4 Kelvin warmer than the environment around it, said Oxford University fellow, Leigh Fletcher, the lead author of the paper.This temperature differential might not seem like a lot, but it is enough to allow the storm circulation, usually counter-clockwise, to shift to a weak clockwise circulation in the very middle of the storm. Not only that, but on other parts of Jupiter, the temperature change is enough to alter wind velocities and affect cloud patterns in the belts and zones."This is the first time we can say that there’s an intimate link between environmental conditions—temperature, winds, pressure and composition—and the actual color of the Great Red Spot,” Fletcher said. “Although we can speculate, we still don’t know for sure which chemicals or processes are causing that deep red color, but we do know now that it is related to changes in the environmental conditions right in the heart of the storm.” Related linkThermal structure and composition of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot from high-resolution thermal imaging
