ONE OF JUPITER’S PHENOMENA: The Little Red Spot on Jupiter is an anti-cyclonic storm formed by the merger of three separate storms observed since the 1930s. In 1998, two of the storms came together and were joined in 2000 by a third to form a storm roughly the size of the planet Earth. Using data from recent telescope and spacecraft observations, scientists determined that the storm has some of the highest wind speeds ever detected on any planet. In 2005, the spot started turning red for unknown reasons, and it now looks similar to its larger, more famous neighbor, the Great Red Spot. The peak wind speed for the Little Red Spot is in excess of 384 miles per hour.
The American Physical Society and the American Geophysical Union contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.