How long do Great White Spots last?

How long do Great White Spots last?

This is about 10 years early for Great White Spots, which usually recur about every 30 Earth years, when Saturn’s northern hemisphere tilts most toward the sun. Only five similar Great White Spots have been observed in the past 135 years. The Great White Spot is a massive complex of thunderstorms.

When was the last great white thunderstorm?

Six Great White Spot (GWS) events have been observed in the atmosphere of Saturn since 1876. These giant convective storms occur roughly once every Saturnian year (equal to 29.5 Earth years). The sixth GWS erupted in December 2010 and has been the subject of intense observation.

How long is the storm on Jupiter been going?

The Great Red Spot is a persistent anticyclonic storm on the planet Jupiter, 22 degrees south of the equator, which has lasted at least 340 years. The storm is large enough to be visible through Earth-based telescopes. It was probably first observed by Cassini, who described it around 1665.

Is the Great Red Spot shrinking?

The Red Spot has been shrinking for at least the past 150 years, dropping from a length of about 40,000 kilometers (24,850 miles) in 1879 to about 15,000 kilometers (9,320 miles) today, and researchers still aren’t sure about the causes of the decrease, or indeed how the spot was formed in the first place.

How big is Saturn’s Great White Spot?

Within days, the March storm—now dubbed White Spot 1—had swollen into a stripe some 2,500 miles across, twice the size of Earth’s most massive typhoons. Two months later, as it still churned in Saturn’s northern hemisphere, White Spot 1 was joined by a second storm (White Spot 2).

Is Jupiter’s storm bigger than Earth?

The Great Red Spot is a giant, spinning storm in Jupiter’s atmosphere. It is like a hurricane on Earth, but it is much larger. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is more than twice the size of Earth!

What planet has a black spot?

While observing the planet’s large inky storm, astronomers spotted a smaller vortex they named Dark Spot Jr. Sign up for Science Times Get stories that capture the wonders of nature, the cosmos and the human body. Get it sent to your inbox.

How big is the great white spot in the sky?

The spots can be several thousands of kilometers wide. The Cassini orbiter was able to track the 2010–11 instance of the storm, also known as the Northern Electrostatic Disturbance, because of an increase in radio and plasma interference, or the Great Springtime Storm.

How big is the great white spot on Saturn?

Saturn’s Great White Spot in 2011. The Great White Spot, also known as Great White Oval, on Saturn, named by analogy to Jupiter ‘s Great Red Spot, are periodic storms that are large enough to be visible from Earth through telescope by their characteristic white appearance. The spots can be several thousands of kilometers wide.

How many times per second does the great white spot flash?

The Great White Spot is a massive complex of thunderstorms. Radio waves emitted by electrical discharges there reveal intense and nearly continuous lightning that, at the peak of the storm, can flash 10 times or more per second.

When was the great white spot first recorded?

That none were recorded before 1876 is a mystery, in some ways akin to the long observational gap of the Great Red Spot in the 18th and early 19th centuries; the 1876 Great White Spot (GWS) was extremely prominent, being visible in apertures as small as 60 mm.