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Jupiter's Great Red Spot May Be Fading Away

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Jupiter's bright red spot is a storm that might be coming to a close after hundreds of years.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstad/Sean Doran

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. It’s one of the most recognizable features of any planet in our solar system, right up there with Saturn’s rings.

And, remarkably, it’s a storm. A really huge storm that’s been raging for hundreds of years.

But it seems to be changing. Observers say it’s shrinking, and they’ve seen wisps peeling off in recent months.

What does it all mean?

We talk to Amy Simon, Senior Scientist for Planetary Atmospheres Research in the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

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Elsa Partan
Elsa Partan is a producer and newscaster with CAI. She first came to the station in 2002 as an intern and fell in love with radio. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. From 2006 to 2009, she covered the state of Wyoming for the NPR member station Wyoming Public Media in Laramie. She was a newspaper reporter at The Mashpee Enterprise from 2010 to 2013. She lives in Falmouth with her husband and two daughters.
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