Hubble has noticed mysterious weather changes on Jupiter. Their reason is still not clear

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has been observing Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS) since 2009. For last

decade winds in the outer zone of the cycloneintensified, and internally—slowed down. Scientists aren't yet sure what the changing winds mean for the BCP, which is shrinking year after year.

The Great Red Spot is a raging cyclone onJupiter is wide enough to engulf the Earth. At the beginning of observations, the BKP had dimensions from 40,000 to 50,000 km in length (according to various sources) and 13,000 km in width. Since the 1930s, its size has been constantly decreasing: in 1979 it was 23,300 km, in 2014 - 16,500 km. Wind speeds inside the spot exceed 500 km/h. The cyclone has been shrinking and becoming more round since astronomers began observing it about 150 years ago. But no one could track the speed of its spiral motion until Hubble turned its attention to the distant orange dot in 2009.

Planetary scientists Michael Wong and Amy Simonrecently analyzed 10 years of telescope data, looking at wind speeds in the Great Red Spot. It turned out that the outer band of the cyclone is accelerating: its wind speed increased to 8% from 2009 to 2020. At the same time, its inner region slowed down significantly. Why this happens is unknown.

The further fate of the BKP remains a mystery.Some scientists are confident that the storm will collapse and disappear in just a few decades due to its constant decline. Others disagree with this theory.

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