Jupiter's Great Red Spot
This view of Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a mosaic of two images taken by the Galileo spacecraft. The image was created using two filters, violet and near-infrared, at each of two camera positions. The Great Red Spot is a storm in Jupiter's atmosphere and is at least 300 years-old. Winds blow counterclockwise around the Great Red Spot at about 400 kilometers per hour (250 miles per hour). The size of the storm is more than one Earth diameter (13,000 kilometers or 8,000 miles) in the north-south direction and more than two Earth diameters in the east-west direction. In this oblique view, where the Great Red Spot is shown on the planet's limb, it appears longer in the north-south direction. The image was taken on June 26, 1996.
The Galileo mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.