126-Hubble Trivia: 16) What has Hubble helped reveal about Jupiter’s Great Red Spot?

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has caught Jupiter’s moon Ganymede playing a game of “peek-a-boo.” In this crisp Hubble image, Ganymede is shown just before it ducks behind the giant planet.

Ganymede completes an orbit around Jupiter every seven days. Because Ganymede’s orbit is tilted nearly edge-on to Earth, it routinely can be seen passing in front of and disappearing behind its giant host, only to reemerge later.

Composed of rock and ice, Ganymede is the largest moon in our Solar System. It is even larger than the planet Mercury. But Ganymede looks like a dirty snowball next to Jupiter, the largest planet in our Solar System. Jupiter is so big that only part of its Southern Hemisphere can be seen in this image.

Hubble’s view is so sharp that astronomers can see features on Ganymede’s surface, most notably the white impact crater, Tros, and its system of rays, bright streaks of material blasted from the crater.

The image also shows Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, the large eye-shaped feature at upper left. A storm the size of two Earths, the Great Red Spot has been raging for more than 300 years. Hubble’s sharp view of the gas giant planet also reveals the texture of the clouds in the Jovian atmosphere as well as various other storms and vortices.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been revealing the secrets of the universe for over 30 years, but it turns out Hubble has some secrets of its own!

The question is: What has Hubble helped reveal about Jupiter’s Great Red Spot? You might be surprised!

See if you know the trivia question before the answer comes up on the screen!