Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Is Shaking

Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot, a storm larger than Earth, has fascinated astronomers for over 150 years. But thanks to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, we’re now seeing this legendary storm in a whole new light. Recent observations show that the Great Red Spot is wobbling and fluctuating in size.

Captured in high-resolution images over 90 days, Hubble’s data reveals the storm speeding up, slowing down, and changing shape—surprising even seasoned scientists. The team predicts that the storm will continue to shrink and eventually stabilize, but right now, it’s still full of dynamic surprises.

Discover how these new findings could help us understand extreme weather not just on Jupiter, but on Earth and distant exoplanets too. Watch the video to see Hubble’s latest footage of this mysterious storm!

For more information, visit https://nasa.gov/hubble.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Paul Morris: Lead Producer

Music Credit:
“Digital Discovery” by Claude Samard [SACEM], and Universal Production Music.

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Transcript
0:00
Astronomers have been observing Jupiter’s Great Red Spot,
0:03
a massive storm big enough to swallow Earth,
0:06
for over 150 years.
0:09
However, new discoveries continue to emerge,
0:12
especially with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope taking close-up views.
0:17
Hubble’s latest observations,
0:19
gathered over 90 days from December 2023 to March 2024,
0:24
show that the Great Red Spot is less stable than it seems.
0:28
The data reveal that the Great Red Spot is wobbling like a bowl of gelatin.
0:32
Hubble’s images allowed
0:33
astronomers to create a time-lapse movie of the storm’s squiggly motion.
0:38
While scientists knew the storm's position changed slightly over time,
0:42
they didn’t expect to see its size fluctuate.
0:45
Thanks to Hubble’s high resolution,
0:47
they found that the Great Red Spot is squeezing in and out while speeding up and slowing down.
0:53
Hubble observes Jupiter and the other outer planets yearly through the Outer
0:57
Planet Atmospheres Legacy program, or OPAL, but these particular images
1:02
were part of a special Great Red Spot study.
1:05
The team has been tracking the shrinking Great Red Spot
1:08
since the OPAL program began 10 years ago
1:11
and predicts it will continue to shrink and eventually
1:13
take on a more stable, less-elongated shape.
1:17
Researchers hope that future high-resolution
1:20
images from Hubble might reveal other clues about what’s causing the storm’s fluctuations.
1:26
Studying the biggest storms in our solar system helps scientists understand hurricane
1:31
patterns on Earth and could even apply to weather on planets around other stars.
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