Many of you may have seen the giant red spot on the planet Jupiter, but did you know how it could affect Earth?
On the planet Jupiter, there is a massive storm known as the Great Red Spot, which is so large that it could engulf our entire Earth.
This spot is typically reddish in color, oval-shaped, and approximately 16,350 kilometers wide, which is large enough to encompass the entire Earth. It moves in the same direction as Jupiter’s rotation.
The first recorded sighting of the Great Red Spot was in 1831, in a drawing made by German astronomer Samuel Heinrich Schwabe. However, it has been continuously observed since 1878, when American astronomer Carl Walter Pertchit first described it.
The color of the spot, as viewed through telescopes from Earth, changes from red to gray over the years. This happens when it blends with the surrounding colored cloud belts.
In the late 19th century, the spot was about 48,000 kilometers (30,000 miles) long, but it has been shrinking ever since. The Voyager spacecraft measured the spot’s length at 23,000 kilometers in 1979, and since 2012, the spot has become more circular, shrinking rapidly at a rate of about 900 kilometers per year.
