"The cloud patterns are distinctive and gorgeous. They remind us a little of Van Gogh's Starry Night, or works by William Blake or Edvard Munch. But only a little. No artist ever painted like this because none of them ever left our planet.
No painter trapped on Earth ever imagined a world so strange and lovely.
"
Carl Sagan. Cosmos
Spinning and hypnotizing, there is a gigantic red storm swirling on the face of Jupiter. It's centuries old and almost twice the diameter of earth.
The Great Red Spot is a high pressure storm just south of Jupiter's equator. You can actually take a look at this churning vortex of gases through a good telescope on your backyard.
Click below to learn about Jupiter's weather and atmosphere, as well as The Great Red Spot and the white ovals that swirl around it.
Jupiter is a gas giant, it has no solid surface so to speak. The Great red spot has been spiraling for hundreds of years on it's surface because there is no land mass to dissipate the storm.