Jovian storms of surpassing beauty.
In April, a visible-light image (left) taken by the Hubble Space Telescope Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the first large optical orbiting observatory. Built from 1978 to 1990 at a cost of $1.5 billion, the HST (named for astronomer E. P. Hubble) was expected to provide the clearest view yet obtained of the universe. showed that a new giant storm (red arrows The Red Arrows, officially known as the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, is the aerobatics display team of the Royal Air Force, based at RAF Scampton, United Kingdom. ) in Jupiter's southern hemisphere was about 62,000 kilometers away from the planet's centuries-old Great Red Spot storm (white arrows). A near-infrared image (right) taken July 13 at the Gemini North Observatory observatory, scientific facility especially equipped to detect and record naturally occurring scientific phenomena. Although geological and meteorological observatories exist, the term is generally applied to astronomical observatories. atop Hawaii's Mauna Kea Mauna Kea (mou`nə kā`ə), dormant volcano, 13,796 ft (4,205 m) high, in the south central part of the island of Hawaii. It is the loftiest peak in the Hawaiian Islands and the highest island mountain in the world, rising c. reveals that the oval storms are now separated by only 3,000 km, as the smaller, faster-moving spot brushes past the larger one. The Great Red Spot is more than twice the width of Earth, while the smaller Jovian hurricane, nicknamed Red Junior, has about the same width as Earth. The smaller spot formed a few years ago, when three storms merged. Moving in opposite directions, the two spots are expected to pass countless times as they travel around Jupiter's sphere. Although the spots appear white in the infrared image, they're tinged red in visible light.
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