I'M FEELING spacesick from all that sustained thrust, but the payoff of making it to Jupiter is more than enough to settle my stomach. Also, I brought tons of cola syrup. Greatest over-the-counter anti-nausea medicine ever, but they hardly sell the stuff anymore!
Anyways, Jupiter is *singsong voice* nuhhhhh-uts! It's nuts!! SO. BIG!!
Our blue whale looks like a minnow next to even the smallest of Jupiter's features, let alone its "Great Red Spot".
I've been learning about this spot - which is visible back on Earth using telescopes as small as 12cm, by the way, so what are you waiting for?! - and I have to say I am FASCINATED!!
First of all, the Great Red Spot is a storm. A storm that could fit two to three Earths inside it, that is! I'm really starting to come to grips with the sheer size of space, now; I mean, we just crossed 408,660,000 miles overnight to reach a bleeding storm that could eat my home planet for breakfast!!
We have hard evidence that this storm has been raging since 1831, but suspect it may go as far back as 1665; my books tell me mathematical models suggest this megastorm may even be a permanent feature of the gas giant.
Isn't that nuts?! Could you imagine if there were a permanent hurricane terrorizing the seas forever back on Earth? What would that do to our shipping lanes? Our tides, our coastal habitats?? Even a hurricane that had been around since 1831 would probably have kicked our asses thoroughly by now!!
This multi-Earth-sized megastorm is so large it takes six days to completely rotate once, as answered correctly by @MsWanderlust on my Twitter feed. (Click on my name in the tagline or fumble about with the Twitter widget near the upper right corner of my blog page to get updates on my journey between posts.)
If one megastorm wasn't enough, scientists have speculated since 2000 that another is forming as we speak. Apparently, a handful of "white storms" just under the Great Red Spot decided to join forces; they've since agglomerated into a larger storm whose colour deepens by the day. It's being called "Red Spot Junior" now.
We'll be in orbit for at least another day, checking for any asteroid belt-induced external damage. I'm ready to get going already, because there's so much ground to cover between here and the Homesphære, but at the same time I say do all the tests you want! I mean, I don't wanna die in outer space!!
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