Winds in Jupiter's Great Red Spot are getting faster, astronomers found using data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
While the increase is not drastic in itself, "we find that the average wind speed in the great red spot has been slightly increasing over the past decade," study lead author Michael Wong of the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement.
Researchers discovered that the winds have increased by much to 8% between 2009 and 2020.
The difference isn't significant, but it illustrates how long-term observations of celestial bodies using equipment like the Hubble Space Telescope might help us better comprehend their patterns and figure out how these massive storms behave.
According to a news release, scientists discovered that the inner ring of the vortex, which humans first noticed more than 150 years ago, is moving far slower than the outer ring.
Wong pointed out how it's difficult to determine what the increased speed signifies.
"That's hard to diagnose since Hubble can't see the bottom of the storm very well. Anything below the cloud tops is invisible in the data," Wong explained.
For over a century, humanity has been fascinated by the Great Red Spot. We now know that the storm's structure is layered, with lofty clouds in the center, and that it was generated by material welling up from the planet's core.
The storm has raged since at least 1830 and possibly since the mid-1600s, when the red spot may have been first seen from Earth.
The shape of the region has changed over time, decreasing somewhat and becoming more circular rather than oval, scientists said.
NASA said that the gigantic storm's red clouds are spinning counterclockwise at speeds exceeding 400 mph, and the vortex is greater than Earth itself.
Researchers were able to notice a dramatic change in winds in 2017 when another huge storm passed near the red spot because the observations are so precise.
It remains to be seen whether Jupiter's red spot will pick up speed, and what this means for the planet. NASA said there is still a lot of work to be done in order to completely comprehend it.
The study was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
