The Great Red Spot

A storm that has lasted for centuries

You need a telescope

The Great Red Spot, a brick-red oval wedged between Jupiter's bands of clouds.

The numbers

What it is: A storm that turns counterclockwise
How long it has lasted: 300yearsAt least: ever since telescopes could see it
How wide it is: Wider than the Earth, and shrinking
How long one turn takes: 6days
Temperature at the top: -260°F(-160 °C)Colder than the clouds around it

To get an idea

It is the biggest storm known in the whole Solar System, and it is still wider than the Earth.

At the end of the 1800s it was more than twice as wide as it is today.

Fun facts

These are not in the book: there was no room on paper.

Around 1880 it was more than twice as wide as it is now.
In recent years it has been shrinking fast, by almost six hundred miles every year.
It is changing shape: from a long oval it is slowly getting closer to a circle.
Nobody knows if it will die out or if the shrinking is just one phase like others.
On Jupiter a storm never hits land, and that is the reason it can last for centuries.

Test yourself

The first question is the one printed under the QR code, with the answer the book did not give. The other four only exist here.

Question 1 of 5★ is the one from your book

What is the Great Red Spot?

Question 2 of 5

How long has it lasted?

Question 3 of 5

Why does a storm on Jupiter last so long?

Question 4 of 5

What is happening to the spot?

Question 5 of 5

Do you need a professional telescope to see it?

Riddles

I am a brick-red oval resting on stripes of clouds, and I stick up higher than everything around me. That is why I am also colder than my neighbors. What am I?

Once I was much wider than I am now, and I keep shrinking year after year. Nobody can say whether one day I will disappear completely. What am I?

Try it yourself

Activity 1

You cannot always see it: Jupiter spins in less than ten hours, so the spot moves to the other side. Try again a few hours later or the next evening.

Activity 2

Stir some water in a bowl with a spoon and then stop: the whirlpool keeps going on its own for a while. Without friction it would go on much longer.

The words

vortex: A mass of air or water that spins around a center.

Sources: Wikidata (Q184395), Wikipedia (Grande Macchia Rossa).