NASA spacecraft captures unpublished photos of Solar System's biggest storm

If you closely follow astronomy-related news, then you should be on top of NASA's Juno space probe. The small unmanned ship has a mission to gather information about Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, and for that, it traveled nearly three billion kilometers - over five years - until it reached the gas giant in mid-2007. last year.

Since then, Juno has been conducting its mission well and helping scientists unravel a host of mysteries about Jupiter. She has also sent spectacular images of the planet - and the last selection was recorded on the "Great Red Spot", the most striking feature of the Jupterian atmosphere.

Big storm

According to Ben Panko of Smithsonian.com today, the spacecraft takes 53 days to travel from one pole to another from Jupiter, and earlier this week, Juno made the biggest Red Spot approach ever made by a device. Terran so far. The best images that existed of this immense structure were those captured by the Voyager space probes when they passed Jupiter in 1979.

This turbulent Jupterian feature has been in operation for over 300 years and is a huge cyclone over 16, 000 kilometers in diameter - meaning our planet would fit in loosely! - winds exceeding 600 km / h and temperatures exceeding 1, 300 degrees Celsius. So it is no wonder that the Great Red Spot is considered the biggest storm in the Solar System.

According to Mark Kaufman of the Inverse site, Juno flew over this massive formation at about 9, 000 kilometers in altitude and took the opportunity to record a portion of images of the storm. The flyover lasted 12 minutes and captured panoramas with its impressive camera - which has a resolution of about three kilometers per pixel. Check out some of the clicks that have already been processed in the following gallery:

Just out of curiosity, during the 19th century, astronomers estimated that the Great Red Spot measured 40, 000 kilometers in diameter, and in 2015 NASA people reported that it appears to be shrinking - at a rate of about 930 km / year. Researchers can't tell the reason for the “shrinkage, ” but perhaps Juno's readings don't help them find out!