Jupiter

Jupiter's Great Red Spot

This image shows the great red spot of Jupiter. Jupiter's famous great red spot is a colossal atmospheric storm that has been raging on Jupiter for over 300 years. Jupiter is believed to be a huge, rapidly spinning, liquid ball topped by a thick atmosphere made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter's atmosphere is dynamic with changing cloud features and convoluted weather patterns and storms. Like Saturn, Jupiter has lightning and auroral emissions. The atmosphere also contains traces of methane, water vapor, sulfur compounds, phosphorous compounds, and ammonia.

Jupiter is more massive than all of the other planets and their moons combined. Jupiter also has rings like Saturn. However, Jupiter's rings are very thin and faint, and the rings are not visible from Earth in amateur size telescopes. Jupiter radiates about twice as much heat as it receives from the Sun. The outer planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are gas giants.

The image was taken with a Takahashi FCT-150 refractor using a ToUcam webcam. A TeleVue 4x PowerMate was used to increase the magnification to f28. At the time the image was taken, Jupiter was near opposition, and was 44.4 arc-seconds in size.

Constellation: Leo
RA: 11h 04m 58.8s Dec: +07d 25' 41"
February 29, 2004
Image by Sid Leach
Scottsdale, Arizona

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