NASA's Hubble telescope captures Jupiter's Great Red Spot shake 'bowl of gelatin'

In a stunning discovery, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope spotted Jupiter's legendary Great Red Spot (GRS) shaking like a bowl of gelatin.

The GRS has always intrigued the astronomers with its existence. It is an anticyclone on the planet which is large enough that it can swallow Earth and is believed to have been present for at least 150 years.

However, in the new observations made by Hubble from the data collected across 90 days between December 2023 to March 2024, it was found that GRS is not actually stable.

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The combination of the Hubble images helped astronomers create a time-lapse movie of the abrupt behaviour of the GRS.

"While we knew its motion varies slightly in its longitude, we didn't expect to see the size oscillate. As far as we know, it's not been identified before," said Amy Simon, lead author of the paperpublishedinThe Planetary Science Journal and member of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.

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"This is really the first time we've had the proper imaging cadence of the GRS. With Hubble's high resolution, we can say that the GRS is definitively squeezing in and out at the same time as it moves faster and slower. That was very unexpected, and at present, there are no hydrodynamic explanations," he added.

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The team, led by Simon, used the Hubble telescope to zoom in on the GRS and get detailed information regarding its size, shape, and any subtle colour changes.

"When we look closely, we see a lot of things are changing from day to day," Simon said.

In the study, ultraviolet-light observations were made, which showed that the storm's distinct core gets brightest when the GRS reaches its largest size in its oscillation cycle. This is indicative of less haze absorption in the upper atmosphere.

"As it accelerates and decelerates, the GRS is pushing against the windy jet streams to the north and south of it," stated co-investigator Mike Wong of the University of California at Berkeley.

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"It's similar to a sandwich where the slices of bread are forced to bulge out when there's too much filling in the middle," he added.

Since the OPAL programme started 10 years ago, the team has been watching the GRS shrink and has predicted that it will continue shrinking before it takes a stable, less-elongated, shape.

"Right now it's over-filling its latitude band relative to the wind field. Once it shrinks inside that band, the winds will really be holding it in place," Simon said.

According to the team, the GRS will most probably get stabilised in size.

(With inputs from agencies)