Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Is Doing Just Fine, Thanks for Your Concern
But scientists will keep monitoring its vital signs, just in case
By Charlie Wood
The solar system’s largest storm has raged on planet Jupiter for at least 200 years, in what many of us know as The Great Red Spot. That tempest, which once could have swallowed roughly three Earths, has looked a little thin these days, moving some to declare its total demise could occur within a couple decades. But some recent slimming doesn’t necessarily mean it’s on death’s doorstep.
At least that’s the conclusion of Philip Marcus, an engineer specializing in fluid dynamics at Berkeley, who defended the Great Red Spot’s vitality at the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics annual meeting on Monday. Observations of red bits flaking off from the main storm combined with decades of data showing the colossal oval shrinking and rounding have led some to fret that the superstorm is waning. But Marcus’s simulations suggest there’s no cause for concern, and that the underlying vortex remains healthy. “I don’t think its fortunes were ever bad,” Marcus said in a press release. “It’s more like Mark Twain’s comment: The reports about its death have been greatly exaggerated.”
