NASA ’s Juno investigation   has come upon that Jupiter ’s Great Red Spot has solution that descend deep into the satellite .

The storm has been annoy for at least 350 years , handle an area 16,000 kilometers ( 10,000 naut mi ) wide , which is 1.3 times big than Earth . The finding were announced on Monday , December 11 , at the annual American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans .

Thanks to Juno , we ’ve been able to get a greater grip on its profundity for the first time . The Microwave Radiometer ( MWR ) instrument on the spacecraft was able-bodied to peer deep beneath the clouds and see how far down it cover .

And that revealed that the storm penetrates about 300 klick ( 200 miles ) into the planet ’s ambience , well below the upper clouds we can see in images . This data point was collected in July 2017 , when Juno flew over the storm for the first time .

" Juno found that the Great Red Spot ’s etymon go 50 to 100 times deep than Earth ’s sea and are warmer at the base than they are at the top , " said Andy Ingersoll , professor of planetary science at Caltech and a Juno conscientious objector - investigator , in astatement .   " Winds are assort with difference in temperature , and the warmth of the blot ’s stand explains the ferocious winds we see at the top of the atmosphere . "

scientist are n’t sure at the consequence what will happen to the Great Red Spot in the time to come , but it seems to be recoil . It has been monitor since 1830 , and since then it has shrunk from more than two times the width of Earth to 1.3 today .

data point from Juno ’s Jupiter Energetic Particle Detector Instrument ( JEDI ) also unwrap a antecedently uncharted radiation zone around Jupiter . One is just above the gas colossus ’s atmosphere near the equator , and includes energetic hydrogen , oxygen , and sulphur ion moving most to the amphetamine of light . This may be the result of gas around Io and Europa .

Juno is continuing to orbit Jupiter , and has so far fill out eight scientific discipline flybys . It take 53 day for the spacecraft to orbit the planet in a panoptic wholesale trajectory that keeps it mostly outside of Jupiter ’s intense radiation sickness apart from these skinny flybys .

It comes as close to 3,400 kilometers ( 2,100 miles ) from the satellite during its closest approach , when its legal instrument are switched on to garner data . Its next qualifying will take place on December 16 , and the commission is expected to continue until at leastJuly 2018 .