1/24/79 40 million km (25 million mi)
5/9/79 46.3 million km (28.7 million mi)
2/25/79 9.2 million km (5.7 million mi)
The Great Red Spot on Jupiter is a tremendous atmospheric storm, twice the size of Earth, that has been observed for centuries. The Great Red Spot rotates counterclockwise with one revolution every six days. Wind currents on the top flow east to west, and currents on the bottom flow west to east. This Voyager 1 picture shows the complex flow and turbulent patterns that result from the Great Red Spot’s interactions with these flows. The large white oval is a similar, but smaller, storm center that has existed for about 40 years.
7/3/79 6 million km (3.72 million mi)
A comparison of the Voyager 2 photograph above with the preceding Voyager 1 photograph shows several distinct changes in the Jovian atmosphere around the Great Red Spot. The white oval beneath the Great Red Spot in the first picture has moved farther around Jupiter, and a different white oval has appeared under the Great Red Spot in the Voyager 2 picture taken four months later. The disturbed cloud regions around the Great Red Spot have noticeably changed, and the white zone west of the Great Red Spot has narrowed.
