Talk:Great Red Spot

Not really "red" in the last 25 -30 years
At 6/6/07 I added: "The spot has been noticebly red at times throughout its observed history yet has not been appreciably red in the visible spectrum since a rather brief period in the mid 1970's." - I am still searching for formal data to corroborate this from my personal observation records (amateur). In my experience observing Jupiter in various telescopes monthly from the late 1960's to present, Jupiter's "Red Spot" actually becomes RED (reeeeally red-red-RED) at times but the only time I have seen it such was during a brief period in the mid 1970's. Thereafter, and up to the presnt, it has returned to the range of dark and light "butterscotch" hues of the rest of the planet's cloudtops and bands. Non-observers should be advised that, for varying reasons at varying times, NASA photos are "sweetened" and the resulting exposition of colors and contrasts should be held as unreliable renderings of "what the eye would see" -unless clearly footnoted as such by the NASA/JPL source. Earrach
 * Are you saying that (faint) colors of planets, etc. as observed through the Earth's atmosphere are constant? (That is: there is no variation due to atmospheric effects) Are you sure? If so, you should have a reference to that (I'm just wondering). Your sentence about it being red in the visible spectrum seems a bit awkward. How do you "see" red in the NON-visible (or invisible) spectrum?? There are a couple of other issues that should be discussed, if this sentence is to (mostly) remain. First, there IS a definition of red light, but there is NOT a consistent and unambiguous definition of psychological/percieved "red". The one is not the other. What we "see" is dependent on many things, including what we expect to see. The second problem is calibration, it is well known that it is quite difficult to calibrate any electronic sight system to unambiguously "match" human eyesight. So normally a color wheel or some other color standard is deployed. So, in the observations which have been on-going for the last several centuries, has there been any standards used (possibly a red giant - or a series of stars of "standard" color? My guess is no. Meaning the notion that the color has or has not been "red" is practically meaningless.Abitslow (talk) 00:30, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

There are new photos from JWST
e.g., https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/08/22/webbs-jupiter-images-showcase-auroras-hazes/ -- Jibal (talk) 01:29, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Falling Moon
THEORY: Could the GRS be caused by a moon that is slowly drawn in by Jupiters gravity, right now sitting in the upper "atmospherere", thereby causing the "storms"? I've thought about this for some time and needed to express it in some forum. I've searched the Internet and haven't found any support for my theory, but I needed to air it and therefore write theese lines. If you can dismiss or want to discuss the theory please contact me at 'clas@europe.com'.

An entertaining theory, but a moon that close to the atmosphere would be well within the Roche Limit, and be torn apart. -Peter

Going back to the idea of the Storm being caused by a falling moon; is it possible that the planet may have torn a moon apart and still have had a resulting storm? I don't know much about planets and i've read very little about the Roche Theory. But I was under the impression that had our moon, for some reason, come close enough to our planet it would have caused tremendous damage by means of storms, tidal waves, etc. I guess I'm asking if it's possible for Jupiter to have destroyed a moon after it was close enough to start a storm? As i said previously I don't know much about these topics at all, but any feedback would be appreciated. -Dan dan@mindfillstudios.com

Well, I'm afriad that your idea simply couldn't work. The idea of the "moon within the atmosphere" doesn't work for a number of reasons> First, assuming that a moon could exist within the atmosphere (which it couldn't) explain how it would cause a storm above it? I assume you thought that the planets rotation would cause the rotation of the storm, but that's beside the point. Furthermore, a moon simply couldn't exist within a planets atmoshpere. The Roche Radius isn't the least of the poor moons worries! If it wer that close, it couldn't possibly maintain "orbital" speeds because the atmosphere would slow it down. Orbit is acheived when an object travels at such speed that the rate at which it falls matches the curvature of the planet below it and thus the object perpetualy "falls" around the planet. Within the highly pressurized atmosphere of Jupiter, these speeds simply aren't possible. Sorry to blow your theory up. But it really wouldn't work. Sorry. The QBasicJedi 16:46, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

well, you all ahve to take into account that jupiter's atmosphere is not at all like ours. so if a moon couldn't possibly exist in our atmosphere, could it possibly exist in jupiter's. jupiter is such a dangerous planet that it is extremely difficult to explore. we don't know very much about this planet. so many things could be possible. for example could the gases on this planet be what cuases this storm? Gases mixing and swirling could cause such storms. the reactions of different gases could cause a reaction much like that of a volcano experiment. in the air this could cause massive storms.

NASA has studied Jupiter in detail via radar and other technologies. These studies were looking for other types of phenomena but would have revealed the presence of any solid object more than a few hundred yards across within the atmosphere. None was found.

There is no reason to believe the after-effects of a collision with a large object would remain visible in the atmosphere centuries later, or that they would involve storms at all. The 1994 impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 created disruptions that lasted for months but deteriorated over time and never became storms. The Great Red Spot, in contrast, has been quite stable for at least the 340 years since it was first seen, and there is no reason to believe it was new even then.

First, that's not a theory as the word is used in science, it's just a random guess. Second, Wikipedia is based on reliable sources and this page is not a blog or question & answer site, it is intended for improving the article, so this whole discussion doesn't belong here.

I've thought about this for some time and needed to express it in some forum. I've searched the Internet and haven't found any support for my theory, but I needed to air it and therefore write theese lines.

Nope, not needed. -- Jibal (talk) 01:18, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Galileo?
The last paragraph says the the Red Spot was sighted by Galileo. This conflicts with the first paragraph, which assigns the discovery to Cassini or Hooke.

The first para would seem to be right. Is there any basis for an attribution to Galileo? It seems unlikely, given the quality of telescopes when Galileo was making his observations.Dandrake 06:25, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Removed the reference, which seems to be wrong and has been defended by nobody.Dandrake 05:27, Dec 6, 2003 (UTC)

*** Dandrake, you fool ! ***

Galileo is also the name of a probe which has sent us remarkable images of this Red Spot : http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo/atjup/atmos/grs.html. Dandrake, I really think you should have let this paragraph be...

Earliest References

 * It was first observed either by Cassini or Hooke around 1665. 

How do we know this? Or more specifically, can anyone tell me where exactly the earliest references to the GRS occur? I'd like to locate the original quotes, if possible. --Iustinus 18:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Oval BA
Added a link about http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/02mar_redjr.htm -24.19.161.152 08:31, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

How long will this storm last?
Okay, so how long will this storm last? It's already lasted over 300 years. Football (sport) 09:52, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Nope, it's been in existence for only 150 years. It was discovered in the 1840's.

It was first observed by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, who described it around 1665. Obviously, it existed before that, even if we didn't know about it.65.6.209.183 01:26, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

It's not 100% certain that is the same storm. --Random832 (contribs) 19:43, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

First saw by.....
It was first observed by Cassini around 1665.

The main article on Jupiter says it was Galileo, which is right?--Skeev 19:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

No. The spot observed by Cassini in 1665 is not the same object as the GRS. Galileo did not report any spot in Jupiter. According to Chris Go, the first confirmed observation of the GRS is in the 1840s.


 * Galileo the space probe, not Galileo the person. -- Jibal (talk) 01:26, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

GA Re-Review and In-line citations
Members of the WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 01:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Vandal!
Please lock this page! I caught a vandalist. See this edit by 24.150.203.82- you'll see the vandalism.-- Evan(Salad dressing is the milk of the infidel!) 23:47, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Gemini Image
The Gemini image was taken on July 14, but released on July 20.

Jupiters moom Metis was dicovered by Snnyott 1979.

This article list at WP:GA/R for review and possible delisting of its Good Article status
This article list at WP:GA/R for review and possible delisting of its Good Article status. --Ling.Nut 19:15, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Reversion
I reverted to a version three months ago to fix some vandalism that had occurred -- large-scale removals from the article. (I later edited in most changes that had taken place since.) This addresses many of the GA review concerns expressed; however, it does not address the lack of inline citations. I would encourage this page's editors to add those citations; I think this could certainly be retained as a GA if they were in place. Shimeru 22:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

first seen
Britannica says it was Hooke. Encarta seems to think so too. Of course, these are secondary sources, yet respectable. Was it really Cassini that first saw it? There should probably be some mention of Hooke, nonetheless.

GA delist
Article delisted, primary remaining reason is not enough refs and improper format of the ones there are. Article was under review over 3 weeks, plenty of time to fix.Rlevse 03:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Image:Jupiter from Voyager 1.jpg
I'm scheduling Image:Jupiter from Voyager 1.jpg for a second round as POTD on April 28, 2007. The first time around, the POTD blurb talked about Jupiter, but I decided to focus it on the GRS instead. The only thing is, it's not in this article. Would we mind putting it in here somewhere? However, it seems superfluous to this article. The one saving grace it has is that it's false-color and there might be a reason for Voyager 1 to have taken this in false-color, but I don't know what that is, and the source page has no such information. If anyone could squeeze this into here and maybe indicate the significance of the false coloration, that would be really cool. Thanks.  howcheng  {chat} 17:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The image is now in the lead section. My guess is that the intensity of the blue was emphasized to increase the amount of contrast between features. If it was all different hues of brown then the details might be more difficult to discern. &mdash; RJH (talk) 23:18, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Settling for consensus, cyclonic vs anticyclonic
Hi. I'm not sure whether the article should say cyclonic or anticyclonic. I think anticyclonic is too north-centric, although some people would think anticyclonic is for any systems that spin clockwise. However, I believe that a cyclone is any low pressure system (eg., even tropical cyclones in Australia, for example, are called cyclones and not anticyclones). Since anticyclone, should, by definition, be the opposite of a cyclone, it should refer to high pressure systems. So, the term "anticyclone" should have a solid definition, whether it refers to high pressure systems that rotate clockwise, all high pressure systems, all clockwise-rotating systems, or any systems that are either high pressure or rotate clockwise,or both. Otherwise, we wouldn't know what to call the great red spot. Should we settle for consensus? If so, please reply sometime in 2007. Thanks. – A  stroHur  ricane  00  1 ( Talk + Contribs + Ubx ) ( + sign here + How's my editing? ) 00:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe that the terms "cyclonic" and "anti-cyclonic" refer to rotation relative to the rotation of a body (i.e. planet). Any motion which rotates in the same direction as a planet is cyclonic, any motion which rotates against the motion of the planet is anti-cyclonic.  Since a planet is spherical, the rotational direction is relative to the poles. Tmangray 20:10, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * A further point---the term "cyclone" arose historically simply as a term to describe the rotary motion of storm systems.Tmangray 16:09, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Please define terms before using
e.g. what is "System II"? Tmangray 18:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Why are some of the wikilinks dark red on this page? No, not the ones linking to non-exsiting pages. The word "Storm" in one of the first paragraphs is show in a dark red on my computer. Any clues? 192.38.4.198 17:48, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * A definition of System II has been added to the text. I'm not sure why Storm appeared in dark red. It may have been a glitch as it seems normal now. &mdash; RJH (talk) 23:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Picture with Earth?
The article says "It is large enough to contain two or three planets the size of Earth", and the dimensions seem to suggest this. But the picture to the right shows Earth as being the same, err, "height" (in the picture) as Jupiter, as also suggested by the dimensions, but the Spot is only about 1.5 times "wider" than Earth, not suggested by the dimensions (I was using my fingers to measure this, but the size of the full picture allowed me to do this without having to move them, and instead moving the image, so it shouldn't be too far off). I don't know whether this is simply because of the angle the picture of Jupiter was taken at causing the Spot to seem less wide than it actually is, but to me it seems a bit misleading. --86.154.69.238 18:03, 6 June 2007 (UTC).

Proposed changes
Based on the GA delisting, I'd like to propose several changes to this article:

After that the lead will need a rewrite to serve as a stand-alone summary, per WP:Lead section. Does this seem like a reasonable approach? I wanted to find out if there are objections before making wholesale changes, including possible expansion. Thanks. &mdash; RJH (talk) 22:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) The "History and longevity" section does not include details about spacecraft exploration. I'd like to rename it to "Observation", make it the first section and merge in the paragraph (and photograph) from the lead describing the Voyager 1 imaging (with some modification).
 * 2) The "Color and visibility" and "Size" sections, plus the third paragraph of the lead, are all about the storm's physical structure. So I'd like to merge these into a common section called "Structure".
 * 3) The "Mechanics" section needs an expansion, including more on the longevity of the storm due to its position and the absorbtion of other storm structures. So I'd like to merge in the "Possible convergence" section and the third paragraph of the lead. Is there a better name?
 * 4) Some of the images in the lead should be moved down into the body.
 * No reply, so I went ahead and performed a re-org. &mdash; RJH (talk) 22:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

There is a Great Dark Spot on Jupiter as well
According to this NASA source, the Great Dark Spot is the name for a feature on Jupiter that was observed by the Cassini spacecraft. &mdash; RJH (talk) 22:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Text corrected and a note left on the Great Dark Spot talk page. &mdash; RJH (talk) 22:49, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Storm
This is one odd storm. Why has its latitude been fixed for over 300 years? What is holding it? And what might be in the center of it? Is there likely to be tranquil like in the eye of the Earth storms? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.89.0.118 (talk) 00:39, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

In ENORMOUS need of an update!
I have a couple of comments for any editor willing to put in some time to fix this broken article. First, there is a strong disagreement of when this GRS was first observed. Specifically whether the pre-1800 observations were of the "same" spot. (Even if it were to have changed its direction of motion, its direction of rotation, its lattitude, color, period, and everything else we know about it, how can we say whether it is or is not the same (or different) There is a logical problem with identifying two processes separated by 200 years as "the same". Certainly, we can't say it's "probably" the same - we just don't know enough about the storms on Jupiter to say that. The "sameness" of the two sets of observations is, factually, unknown - despite opinions on either side of the issue. There is an entire (lengthy) paragraph discussing the BA Oval circa 2005 C.E.: who cares? Ten years later either this digression should be updated (if it had a significant impact on thinking on the GRS) or removed as no longer relevant (as I write this in April 2016). Lastly, the GRS has continued to shrink with a large decrease noted by Hubble in 2014 from earlier observations. (See NASA Technical Reports "Dramatic Change in Jupiter's Great Red Spot" March 16, 2015.) I read (but cannot find the reference in Science magazine) that it is believed by many experts that the spot will continue to dissipate (or possibly merge with another storm). That report has its aspect ratio at 1.5, down from 1.8 in recent times and from over 2 in the historical record, its longitudinal extent at 14° while Voyager, 1979 observed it at 21° and Hubble 2012 at 15.5°. Also note a major observation is the significant changes in its color in that report. See my previous comments about color posted under "Not really red..." section on this Talk page.Abitslow (talk) 00:55, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
 * People seem convinced that this article should exist, but not that it should contain any information.  Serendi pod ous  05:10, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I would be very hesitant to include what some experts "believe" in this case. The thermodynamic CAUSE(s) of the GRS are not known. Therefore not understood. Without basic understanding of cause, the idea that there are "experts" who have some type of better understanding of the GRS duration is laughable. What I'm saying is that there ARE no "experts" when it comes to extrapolating the future of the GRS. It's been shrinking since the 1920's and been on a mostly downward trend since the 1880's. see this:https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/aaae0140.142.191.32 (talk) 07:41, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

External links modified
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Edit request
The Observation section claims that the GRS was "seen" shrinking in the 21st Century. What?? The GRS has been shrinking (and moving) since at least the 1920's. This needs to be fixed. Please refer to the graph found in https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/aaae01 to see how much it has shrunk since 1880. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 40.142.191.32 (talk) 07:45, 11 November 2019 (UTC)