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Sep 29, 2020

The Newest Picture of Jupiter and Europa Captured by Hubble

Posted by in category: space

Hubble has released new images of Jupiter as part of OPAL: Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy program. New storms are forming on the gas giant.


The venerable Hubble Space Telescope has given us another gorgeous picture of Jupiter and its moon Europa. The incredibly sharp image was captured on August 25th, and shows some of the stunning detail in Jupiter’s stormy atmosphere. Hidden in all that stormy activity is something new: a bright white storm plume travelling at about 560 km/h (350 MP/h).

Jupiter was 653 million km (406 million mi) away from Earth when the image was taken. The image is part of OPAL, the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program. Each year, Hubble images the entire planet to watch for changes in the atmosphere and in the storm activity.

The Great Red Spot (GRS) is prominent in this image, just as it’s been prominent in every image of Jupiter for about 200 years. A storm was seen on Jupiter prior to that, but scientists aren’t certain it was the same storm. If it was, then the GRS has been around even longer.

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