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Jupiter is showing signs of entering a strange new phase, and scientists are watching closely to understand what is changing. Because the giant planet plays a major role in shaping the solar system, any major shift around it could have consequences far beyond Jupiter itself. Now researchers are asking whether Earth could eventually feel the effects too.
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00:01For centuries, Jupiter seemed like the most stable planet in the solar system.
00:07It's so massive that it contains more than twice the mass of every other planet combined.
00:12And its powerful gravity has shaped the orbits of worlds for billions of years.
00:18But recent observations from NASA's Juno spacecraft are revealing a very different picture.
00:24Beneath Jupiter's colorful clouds, enormous storms are changing.
00:30Its magnetic field behaves in unexpected ways.
00:34And scientists have discovered that the planet may be slowly shrinking as it radiates more heat than it receives from
00:41the Sun.
00:42None of these discoveries means Jupiter is about to disappear.
00:46But together, they show that the solar system's giant is far more dynamic than anyone imagined.
00:53One of the biggest surprises came from Jupiter's famous Great Red Spot.
00:58For at least 190 years, this enormous storm has dominated the planet's atmosphere and has long been considered almost permanent.
01:07Yet modern observations show that it has been shrinking for decades.
01:12The storm is now significantly smaller than it was when astronomers first began measuring it in the 19th century.
01:19At the same time, its winds remain incredibly powerful, suggesting that scientists still don't fully understand what controls its evolution.
01:30Juno also revealed that Jupiter's atmosphere extends much deeper than expected.
01:35Massive cyclones rage around both poles, forming geometric patterns unlike anything seen elsewhere in the solar system.
01:43These storms interact with one another instead of simply drifting apart, creating a constantly changing weather system that stretches hundreds
01:53of kilometers below the visible cloud tops.
01:57Every new flyby reveals subtle changes, proving that Jupiter's atmosphere is anything but static.
02:03Even stranger is Jupiter's magnetic field.
02:08It's the strongest planetary magnetic field in the solar system, yet Juno discovered that it is surprisingly uneven.
02:16Some regions are far stronger than predicted, while others behave in ways that existing models struggle to explain.
02:24Scientists believe these strange patterns are linked to the movement of metallic hydrogen deep inside the planet, where enormous pressures
02:34turn ordinary hydrogen into an electrically conducting fluid.
02:38Jupiter is also slowly losing energy.
02:42The giant planet radiates more heat into space than it receives from the Sun, meaning it continues cooling and contracting
02:49as leftover heat from its formation escapes into space.
02:54This process has been occurring for billions of years and will continue for billions more.
03:01Although the changes are incredibly slow, they show that Jupiter is still evolving rather than remaining frozen in time.
03:09The greatest danger may not be to Jupiter itself, but to our understanding of giant planets.
03:16Every major discovery made by Juno has challenged long-standing theories about how gas giants form, generate magnetic fields, and
03:26produce enormous storms.
03:28Since thousands of exoplanets discovered around other stars are similar to Jupiter, every mystery solved here helps scientists understand countless
03:38distant worlds as well.
03:40So, is Jupiter really in danger?
03:43Not in the way the headline suggests.
03:47The planet isn't falling apart, and it isn't about to vanish.
03:51But the image of Jupiter as a quiet, unchanging giant has been shattered.
03:57Instead, we now know it is an active, evolving world filled with powerful storms, hidden oceans of metallic hydrogen, and
04:07deep internal processes that scientists are only beginning to understand.
04:12Sometimes the greatest danger isn't to a planet.
04:15It's to everything we thought we knew about it.
04:21Uh-oh, hurricane alert!
04:23Everyone's hiding.
04:24The speed of the wind outside is more than 75 miles per hour.
04:28Seems like a lot.
04:30But this storm is moving at 400 miles per hour.
04:33Wait!
04:34Do such speeds exist?
04:36Yep.
04:36But to see a storm that fast, you'll have to travel to Jupiter.
04:40So, let the journey begin.
04:43The planet is huge.
04:46Almost 1,300 Earths could fit into this gas giant.
04:49It's also incredibly hot, with the temperatures reaching about 43,000 degrees Fahrenheit at the planet's core.
04:56Unfortunately, you can't land on Jupiter's surface because, well, being a gas giant, it doesn't have any solid surface.
05:04But you can go deeper into Jupiter's atmosphere.
05:07Look at these thick brown, yellow, red, and white clouds passing by.
05:11They're what make the planet look colorful and kind of striped.
05:15If you continue descending toward the center of the planet, you'll see its atmosphere, mostly made up of hydrogen and
05:21helium gas, becoming liquid.
05:24It happens because of immense atmospheric pressure.
05:27The planet's core itself is a mysterious object.
05:30Scientists still haven't figured out whether it's a molten ball of thick liquid or a solid rock 14 to 18
05:37times the mass of Earth.
05:38Anyway, exploring Jupiter isn't the main goal of your trip.
05:43No, you've arrived here to see the Great Red Spot.
05:46It's an enormous storm raging in the southern hemisphere of the gas giant.
05:50Its top parts are towering more than 5 miles above the tops of the surrounding clouds.
05:56The storm is 1.3 times wider than our planet.
05:59In 2017, NASA's Juno space probe managed to collect lots of data about the red spot.
06:05And it turned out that this monster of a storm goes more than 200 miles down into the planet's atmosphere.
06:13That's 30 to 100 times deeper than any ocean on Earth.
06:16But these measurements are most likely imprecise, and the storm's true roots can be reaching even deeper.
06:23The Great Red Spot is colder than the rest of the atmosphere.
06:27And keep in mind that Jupiter's temperatures are minus 234 degrees Fahrenheit in the upper cloud layers.
06:34On the other hand, the closer to the core, the hotter it gets.
06:38Mysteriously, the highest temperatures ever recorded on the gas giant occurred in the atmosphere right above the Great Red Spot.
06:46There, the heat reached 2,400 degrees.
06:49This temperature is higher than that of lava on our planet.
06:53Astronomers believe that the turbulence caused by the storm might produce gravitational and sound waves that can be responsible for
07:01the superheating.
07:02But the storm itself is warmer at the bottom than at the top.
07:06People have been watching the moving vortex on Jupiter for more than 150 years.
07:11Some time ago, astronomers predicted that it would gradually slow down and become smaller or disappear entirely.
07:18But that turned out not to be the case.
07:21After having analyzed all the data received with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope,
07:26researchers were baffled to discover that the winds at the outer boundaries of the storm had actually picked up speed.
07:33The change in the wind speed is no more than 1.5 miles per hour during one Earth year.
07:38It's a tiny change, but however small the difference is, it still means a lot.
07:44The wind speed at the edges of the storm can reach a mind-boggling 400 miles per hour.
07:50That's faster than Earth's tornadoes.
07:52At the same time, if you found yourself at the center of the Great Red Spot, you wouldn't be too
07:58impressed.
07:58The winds there move way more slowly.
08:01Scientists faced lots of challenges when they were trying to understand the mystery that was the Great Red Spot.
08:07It's unclear what fuels the storm.
08:10Can it be the nature of the storm's home planet?
08:13Since it's a gas giant, Jupiter doesn't have any solid ground, so there's no friction, which might be the only
08:20thing that could make the storm weaken.
08:21The hot gases in the planet's atmosphere are always moving, rising, falling, swirling.
08:28Just like on our home planet, where cooler and warmer air mix and merge into one another, forming giant circling
08:35storms.
08:36Astronomers think that once, several enormous storms could have come together and created the Great Red Spot.
08:42And now, it keeps going by constantly drawing cool gases from below and hot gases from above.
08:49Plus, the storm might be absorbing other smaller vortices.
08:53This makes the Great Red Spot even more powerful.
08:57Unfortunately, thick clouds on Jupiter don't allow astronomers to see what's going on in the planet's lower atmosphere.
09:03Scientists have been speculating on what may hide beneath the Great Red Spot for decades.
09:09Is it a massive volcano?
09:11Unlikely.
09:12Jupiter is mostly made up of gases.
09:14And it doesn't have a crust that could crack, letting lava escape from the planet's interior.
09:19There are also a few theories explaining why the storm has its trademark color.
09:25It varies from whitish and pale salmon to bright orange and brick red.
09:30Some scientists believe the answer lies deep below the Great Red Spot, closer to the planet's surface.
09:36A colorless layer of gas might be reacting to the UV radiation coming from the sun.
09:42This is probably what gives the storm its red color.
09:45But so far, it's just a theory.
09:47Hey, your guess is as good as mine, huh?
09:50Jupiter isn't the only planet that can boast having a giant storm.
09:54Another one, as wide as our home planet, rages on Saturn.
09:59It's called the Great White Spot.
10:01How clever!
10:02The storm has a tail of white clouds encircling the entire planet.
10:06It occurs every 30 years or so.
10:09The storm, indeed, starts as a spot.
10:11But then, it starts stretching and stretching.
10:15Astronomers have figured out that the Great White Spot is actually a huge system of thunderstorms.
10:21At the top of the storm, lightning can flash more than 10 times per second.
10:26But the main mystery about the Great White Spot is where it gets its energy from.
10:30Some scientists think it may be powered by the sun.
10:33Others argue that the storm's cloud pattern only makes sense if there's an internal source of heat that can power
10:40the winds.
10:40Anyway, severe storms on different planets of the solar system aren't the only space mystery that makes astronomers scratch their
10:48heads.
10:48Let's move to Pluto, the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system, and explore its atmosphere.
10:54It rises really high above the surface of the planet, and has more than 20 layers, all of them freezing
11:00cold and extremely condensed.
11:03By the way, our Moon also has some sort of an atmosphere.
11:07Called an exosphere, it consists of helium, neon, and argon.
11:11It's 10 trillion times less dense than Earth's atmosphere.
11:15While traveling through space, watch out for black holes!
11:19Whoo!
11:19A black hole is a place where gravity is so strong that even light can't get out.
11:25But black holes can sometimes behave like a massive galactic volcano.
11:29From time to time, they flare up.
11:31Sounds like me.
11:33But instead of spewing lava, they produce enormous amounts of energy.
11:37And this phenomenon leaves gaping holes in the surrounding material and gas.
11:42A short while ago, scientists discovered one of the largest craters in the universe.
11:47Radio and X-ray telescopes detected a supermassive black hole that threw a temper tantrum many, many years ago.
11:54It happened in a galaxy cluster about 390 million light-years away from Earth.
11:59The crater this event left behind could fit 15 Milky Way galaxies.
12:05Yeah, I can't get my head around that either.
12:07During your space voyage, think twice before landing on unknown planets.
12:12Otherwise, you may end up in a place like K2-141b.
12:17That's a planet outside of our solar system.
12:20At first glance, it's not that different from Earth.
12:22It has liquid oceans that evaporate, form clouds, condense, and get back to the surface's rain.
12:28But instead of water, it rains rocks.
12:31The surface of this exoplanet is covered with lava seas dozens of miles deep.
12:37The temperatures on the K2-141b reach 5,000 degrees during the day.
12:42That's toasty enough for the magma in the oceans to vaporize into the atmosphere.
12:47Then, supersonic winds, which can move at the speed of one mile per second, carry this rock vapor into the
12:54planet's night sign.
12:55The vaporized magma cools down, becomes liquid again, and falls as a rocky rain.
13:01Uh-uh, not a vacation spot. Too hot. I'll pass.
13:06A few years ago, NASA caught a mysterious green glow on Jupiter.
13:11It was moving at breakneck speed and almost escaped detection.
13:16Could it be proof that Jupiter has secrets we've been missing for decades?
13:21And if so, how will it affect us humans on Earth?
13:25Well, the truth is, astronomers didn't just stumble across this phenomenon.
13:30They've been studying Jupiter very carefully for a long time.
13:34The reason is the Juno mission.
13:37The Juno spacecraft was launched in 2011, and it reached Jupiter in 2016.
13:42Since then, it's been orbiting the planet and collecting tons of data.
13:47Juno's job is to help us understand what Jupiter is made of, how its atmosphere works, and what's happening deep
13:53inside the planet.
13:55In 2020, one of Juno's cameras, called Junocam, clever, captured something strange.
14:01Near Jupiter's North Pole, a bright green flash of light occurred.
14:06This light appeared to be moving very fast.
14:09Capturing fast-moving objects in space is extremely difficult.
14:14That's why this image surprised many scientists.
14:17So, what could this green glow be?
14:20The most plausible and widely accepted explanation is lightning.
14:25But lightning on Jupiter is very different from lightning on Earth.
14:28On Jupiter, lightning forms inside massive clouds made of ammonia and water.
14:34These storms are far stronger than anything we experience here.
14:38And they can produce unusual colors, including green.
14:43But what if the green glow isn't lightning at all?
14:46Why didn't we see it before?
14:48This glow could always exist, but it probably moved too fast for our cameras to catch until now.
14:55Anyway, if we spot it again, we would be able to study it more closely and figure out what's really
15:01going on.
15:02Until then, a lot of the explanations are still educated guesses.
15:09Another question is what this might mean for Earth.
15:12Scientists are sure it won't have any direct impact on our planet.
15:16But the discovery is still important.
15:18It shows that weather-like phenomena such as lightning exists on other planets, and sometimes in much more extreme forms.
15:26Like on Mars, for example, scientists have just discovered that the planet's atmosphere crackles with static electricity.
15:34In other words, Mars has tiny lightning.
15:38Back in 2021, when a dust devil rolled over NASA's Perseverance rover, scientists expected to hear the usual stuff –
15:47sand scraping, wind rushing past.
15:49Instead, the rover picked up a faint hop.
15:53At first, it didn't make much sense.
15:56And now, researchers finally think they know what it was.
16:00That sound likely came from electricity discharging in Mars' thin air.
16:05Basically, mini-lightning on Mars.
16:09It doesn't look like lightning on Earth.
16:11There are no bright flashes drinking across the sky.
16:14Mars' atmosphere is too thin for that.
16:17Instead, these are tiny sparks.
16:20Still, they count as lightning, which officially makes Mars, the third planet beyond Earth, known to have lightning, after Jupiter
16:28and Saturn.
16:29How did scientists find this?
16:32Well, Perseverance has a microphone called SuperCam mounted on its mast.
16:37Over two years, it recorded about 28 hours of Martian sound.
16:42And hidden in all that audio were 55 short bursts that matched what you would expect from small electrical discharges.
16:50The sparks were super tiny, like those little shots you get when you touch a doorknob after walking across a
16:57carpet.
16:57Yeah.
16:59Each spark lasted only milliseconds, but seven of them also lined up with electromagnetic interference.
17:05This is a big clue that electricity had jumped through the air near the rover.
17:11But where does this Martian lightning come from?
17:14On Earth, lightning forms inside storm clouds when ice particles collide.
17:19Now, Mars doesn't have rainstorms like that.
17:22It's too cold and dry.
17:24But it does have a lot of dust.
17:27When strong winds whip dust grains around, they rub into each other and trade electric charges.
17:34Scientists use a long and complicated word to describe this phenomenon, tribo-electrification.
17:39But the idea is simple.
17:41Friction builds up electricity.
17:44Once that charge grows strong enough, it releases.
17:47That release creates both sound and electromagnetic waves, the very signals perseverance detected.
17:54These tiny sparks might sound harmless, but they matter a lot.
17:59Electrical activity can change Mars' chemistry.
18:02It may help create reactive chemicals like hydrogen peroxide and percolates, which break down organic matter.
18:10That could help explain why Mars struggles to preserve signs of ancient life.
18:15Electricity might also affect how dust moves.
18:18Charged dust lifts more easily, which could help dust storms grow and support themselves.
18:24That creates something like a feedback loop.
18:27More dust, more charge, more storms.
18:30And there's a practical side, too.
18:32These sparks won't hurt astronauts directly, but they could interfere with electronics or damage sensitive equipment.
18:40Knowing when and where they happen will help engineers design future missions and future spacesuits to handle Mars' electrically active
18:48environment.
18:50Now, let's move further away from the Sun.
18:53Here's something that might change how you picture the Solar System.
18:56New simulations suggest that Uranus and Neptune might not be giant balls of ice after all.
19:03They could actually be much rockier on the inside, with thin icy layers around.
19:08Researchers at the University of Zurich ran new models and found that these ice giants don't have to be ice
19:15-dominated to match what we observe.
19:17In fact, many of their simulations worked just as well if these planets contained a lot more rock than expected.
19:24Based on the data we have today, Uranus and Neptune could be rock-heavy or ice-heavy.
19:30There's just not enough information to choose between the two.
19:34That's why scientists keep calling for missions that would orbit these planets and study them up close.
19:41Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989.
19:46It grabbed a few measurements and kept going.
19:49No spacecraft has ever stayed long enough to really figure out what's happening beneath the clouds.
19:55So, scientists rely on computer models built from limited clues.
20:00The classic ice giant picture still works, but it's no longer the only explanation that fits the data.
20:07Now, another astonishing discovery involves Uranus' moon, Ariel.
20:11Even though it's small, scientists now think it could have once hidden a massive underground ocean that made up more
20:18than half of its entire volume.
20:21That ocean could have been around 105 miles thick, and it might have existed as recently as one billion years
20:28ago.
20:29Ariel is only about 720 miles wide, roughly a third the size of Earth's moon.
20:35Because of that, scientists used to assume it couldn't hold on to heat for very long.
20:40Newer research doesn't quite agree.
20:43When Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986, it sent back images showing that Ariel's surface didn't look old and
20:51frozen.
20:52Instead, the moon looked relatively young and active, with cracks, ridges, and even signs of ice volcanoes.
21:00Some of those features look surprisingly similar to what we see on moons, like Europa, Enceladus, and Triton.
21:07And those are places we already know have oceans beneath the ice.
21:12Later on, scientists also found traces of ammonia and carbon-based compounds on Ariel's surface.
21:18Those chemicals usually don't last long, unless something keeps bringing them up from below, which often means liquid water underground.
21:28Researchers built models of what the inside of Ariel might look like.
21:32In their simulations, the moon had a brittle outer crust, a softer layer underneath, a deep ocean below that, and
21:40a solid core at the center.
21:41After that, they tested how Ariel's crust would react to tidal forces, the constant stretching and squeezing caused by Uranus
21:49and nearby moons.
21:51It turns out that if Ariel's crust was less than about 19 miles thick, it would crack under a serious
21:58amount of tidal stress.
22:00One source of that stress could be an interaction with another moon, Miranda, about one to two billion years ago.
22:07That interaction slightly stretched Ariel's orbit and put enough strain on the crust to break it.
22:14In any case, it's too early to claim that Ariel still has a huge ocean today.
22:19It's small, and it loses heat easily.
22:22If any liquid water remains, it's probably much thinner and not exactly a great place to look for life.
22:32Hey, Space Buffs! Just how well do you know our solar system?
22:37Guess the planet! It's more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined.
22:43It's covered with striking swirls and stripes, which are actually windy clouds of cold ammonia and water, floating in an
22:51atmosphere of hydrogen and helium.
22:53Still no clue? Then look at this! It's the infamous Great Red Spot!
22:59A giant storm larger than our home planet that has been raging for hundreds of years!
23:05Right you are! This cloudy world is Jupiter!
23:09And the main question is, is this planet our enemy or friend?
23:15NASA's Juno Orbiter is exploring this gas giant at the moment, sending us tons of useful data.
23:23Jupiter is so big that 11 Earths could fit across its equator.
23:28If our planet was the size of a grape, Jupiter would be a basketball.
23:32The gas giant is the fifth planet from the Sun, orbiting around 484 million miles away.
23:40And even though for us Earthlings, our blue-green world seems to be the most important among all the other
23:47planets.
23:47We live in Jupiter's solar system. After all, it accounts for 75% of the mass of all the planets
23:55in our star system.
23:56And it's also 318 times more massive than Earth.
24:02And whatever Jupiter wants, Jupiter gets.
24:06Jupiter wants to throw stuff across the solar system? No problem!
24:11After all, this gas giant doesn't have its immense gravity for nothing.
24:16It yanks material from the asteroid belt, stopping poor space rocks from forming anything larger than Ceres,
24:22the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system.
24:27Jupiter is hungry. It gobbles up comets, asteroids and whatnot.
24:32Jupiter is bored. It hurdles everything it manages to capture on wayward trajectories.
24:38This gas giant must have caused a lot of destruction over the course of its life, which is around 4
24:45.5 billion years.
24:48But here's the thing. Some scientists think that we might owe our very existence and the existence of our planet
24:55to Jupiter's protective gravity.
24:57It may sound confusing, but by greedily swallowing up dangerous space objects, this planet vacuums the solar system.
25:05Other astronomers don't agree with this theory.
25:08They claim Jupiter is a hooligan, bothering peaceful and safe comets and sending them to unexpected places.
25:16You see, some of the most dangerous objects in our solar system are long period comets.
25:22Those are huge chunks of ice and rock coming from the depths of the Oort cloud, which lies far beyond
25:29Pluto.
25:30Some of them get pushed into the inner solar system, where they dash past the Sun.
25:35There's a chance that the most devastating extinction on Earth was caused by a long period comet.
25:43As such comets make their way through the solar system, they likely interact with Jupiter's gravity.
25:49The gas giant pushes them this way and that, consuming some of them like delicious ice rock burgers.
25:56But does Jupiter push such comets out of their dangerous orbit so that they don't smash into Earth?
26:01Or does this gas giant actually divert the trajectories of the comets that would otherwise miss Earth?
26:08No one knows.
26:11Astronomers sometimes call Jupiter a failed star.
26:15The gas giant indeed contains a lot of helium and hydrogen.
26:20The material stars are mostly made of.
26:22But the planet's mass isn't enough to start a fusion reaction in its core.
26:27And that's exactly how stars produce energy.
26:31They fuse the atoms of hydrogen together under extreme pressure and heat and create helium.
26:38In the process, they also release light and heat.
26:43Jupiter could start a nuclear reaction and become a star only if it was 75 times its current mass.
26:52Paradoxically, if Jupiter even got more massive, it would also get smaller.
26:58This additional mass would make the planet denser and it would cause the gas giant to start pulling it in
27:05on itself.
27:07Astronomers are almost sure that even if Jupiter was four times its current mass, it would still remain the same
27:13size.
27:16Jupiter has between 80 and 95 moons.
27:20But one of the most popular ones these days is Europa.
27:24Imagine a still, frozen world.
27:27It's ancient, about 4.5 billion years old.
27:31It's barely heated by the rays of the sun and covered with a thick layer of ice.
27:37This world is smaller than our moon, but a bit larger than Pluto.
27:42That's what Europa, the sixth satellite of Jupiter and one of the biggest moons in the solar system looks like.
27:48And the coolest thing about this far away place, it might host life.
27:54Astronomers consider Europa to be one of the most promising places in the solar system to search for new forms
28:01of life.
28:02All because this moon has a huge saltwater ocean with a depth of 40 to 100 miles.
28:09Yes, it is hidden under a layer of ice that is estimated to be from 10 to 20 miles thick.
28:16But it's still potentially habitable.
28:19Astronomers claim that plumes of water erupt from cracks in the ice shell and release the contents of the moon's
28:26ocean into space.
28:29For a long time, scientists have been wondering about Jupiter's X-ray auroras.
28:35What causes them?
28:36It seems like the 40-year-old mystery has been solved.
28:39Jupiter's breathtaking X-ray auroral emissions are triggered by electrically charged particles called ions.
28:48They crash into the gas giant's atmosphere and here's the result.
28:53But astronomers couldn't understand how those ions got to the atmosphere in the first place.
28:59But recently, they've seen the ions surfing Jupiter's magnetic field all the way down to the planet's atmosphere.
29:08Astronomers have received this data thanks to NASA's Juno spacecraft and ESA's XMM-Newton telescope situated in Earth's orbit.
29:19Now, on our home planet, auroras are only visible in a belt surrounding the magnetic poles, between 65 and 80
29:28degrees latitude.
29:29Anything beyond 80 degrees and auroras disappear.
29:33But Jupiter's X-ray auroras are much more inconsistent.
29:38They pulsate regularly poleward of the main belt and sometimes they're different at the north and south poles.
29:47Scientists have figured out that this pulsation is caused by the fluctuations in Jupiter's magnetic field.
29:54You see, when the planet rotates, it drags behind its magnetic field.
29:59Struck by the particles of the solar wind, it gets compressed.
30:03This heats the particles trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field and they start moving along the magnetic field lines, producing magnificent
30:12auroras.
30:15Another feature Jupiter is famous for is its Great Red Spot.
30:20An enormous storm raging in the southern hemisphere of the gas giant.
30:25Its top parts tower more than five miles above the surrounding cloud tops.
30:30The storm is more than twice as wide as our planet.
30:33At the edges of the storm, the wind speeds reach 270 to 420 miles per hour.
30:42That's faster than Earth's tornadoes.
30:45The hot gases in the planet's atmosphere are always moving, rising, falling and swirling.
30:51Just like on our planet when cooler and hotter gases mix and merge into one another, they form giant circling
30:58storms.
31:00Astronomers think that once, several enormous storms could have come together, creating the Great Red Spot.
31:07And now it keeps raging by constantly drawing cool gases from below and hot gases from above.
31:14Plus, this monster of a storm absorbs other, smaller vortices.
31:19They make the spot even more powerful.
31:23Several theories try to explain why the storm has its trademark color.
31:28It varies from whitish and pale salmon to orange and brick red.
31:34Some scientists believe the answer lies below the Great Red Spot, closer to the planet's surface.
31:40A colorless layer of ammonium hydrosulfide might be reacting with the cosmic rays or the UV radiation coming from the
31:48sun.
31:48This somehow gives the spot its pretty red color.
31:52But so far, it's just a theory.
31:55Astronomers have been observing the Great Red Spot since the 1830s.
32:00And for the first time, the storm was spotted in 1665 and described as the permanent spot.
32:07In other words, the storm is almost 400 years old.
32:12Strangely, it's been shrinking in size since the beginning of the 21st century.
32:16In 2019, it began flaking at the edges, with small pieces breaking off and vanishing.
32:24If this process continues, by 2040, the Great Red Spot might become circular or it may simply disappear.