The shrinking and "flaking" fueled speculation from some astronomers that the Great Red Spot could dissipate within 20 years. In 2019, the Great Red Spot began "flaking" at its edge, with fragments of the storm breaking off and dissipating. It is not known how long the spot will last, or whether the change is a result of normal fluctuations. At the present rate of reduction, it will become circular by 2040. At the start of 2004, its length was about half that of a century earlier, when it reached a size of 40,000 km (25,000 mi), about three times the diameter of Earth. In the 21st century, the Great Red Spot has been observed to be shrinking in size. The colorful, wavy cloud pattern seen to the left (west) of the Red Spot is a region of extraordinarily complex and variable wave motion. Cloud details as small as 160 km (100 mi) across were visible. On 25 February 1979, when the Voyager 1 spacecraft was 9,200,000 km (5,700,000 mi) from Jupiter, it transmitted the first detailed image of the Great Red Spot. Since it came into prominence in 1879, it has been under continuous observation.Ī wide view of Jupiter and the Great Red Spot as seen from Voyager 1 in 1979. By 1879, over 60 observations had been recorded. The Great Red Spot has been observed since 5 September 1831. No Jovian feature was explicitly described in writing as red before the late 19th century. Part of a series of panels in which different (magnified) heavenly bodies serve as backdrops for various Italian scenes, and all overseen by the astronomer Eustachio Manfredi for accuracy, Creti's painting is the first known depiction of the Great Red Spot as red (albeit raised to the Jovian northern hemisphere due to an optical inversion inherent to the era's telescopes). Ī minor mystery concerns a Jovian spot depicted in a 1711 canvas by Donato Creti, which is exhibited in the Vatican. The older spot's shorter observational history and slower motion than the modern spot makes it difficult to conclude that they are the same. With fluctuations in visibility, Cassini's spot was observed from 1665 to 1713, but the 118-year observational gap makes the identity of the two spots inconclusive. Far more convincing is Giovanni Cassini's description of a "permanent spot" the following year. However, it is likely that Hooke's spot was not only in another belt altogether (the North Equatorial Belt, as opposed to the current Great Red Spot's location in the South Equatorial Belt), but also that it was the shadow of a transiting moon, most likely Callisto. The first sighting of the Great Red Spot is often credited to Robert Hooke, who described a spot on the planet in May 1664. Whether the original spot dissipated and reformed, whether it faded, or if the observational record was simply poor is unknown. A long gap separates its period of current study after 1830 from its 17th century discovery. The storm that was seen in the 17th century may have been different from the storm that exists today. The Great Red Spot may have existed since before 1665, but it could be that the present spot was first seen only in 1830, and was well studied only after a prominent appearance in 1879. A sketch of Jupiter made by Thomas Gwyn Elger on November 1881, showing the Great Red Spot
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