The Great Red Spot is a persistent anticyclonic storm, 22° south of Jupiter's equator; observations from Earth establish a minimum storm lifetime between 300 and 400 years. It was described as a "permanent spot" by Gian Domenico Cassini after observing the feature in July 1665 with his instrument-maker Eustachio Divini. According to a report by Giovanni Battista Riccioli in 1635, Leander Bandtius, who Riccioli identified as the Abbot of Dunisburgh who possessed an "extraordinary telescope", observed a large spot that he described as "oval, equaling one seventh of Jupiter's diameter at its longest." According to Riccioli, "these features are seldom able to be seen, and then only by a telescope of exceptional quality and magnification."
Rosetta Spacecraft Set to Harpoon a Comet Tomorrow
NASA’s Operation IceBridge recently reached the mid-point of the 2014 Antarctic campaign, flying two more missions in West Antarctica. Flights measured the Land Glacier and nearby coastal areas
IceBridge Returns to Thwaites Glacier
Early tomorrow morning, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft will deploy its comet lander, "Philae." A little over seven hours later, the experiment-laden, harpoon-firing Philae is scheduled to touch down on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Hubble Sees 'Ghost Light' From Dead Galaxies
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has picked up the faint, ghostly glow of stars ejected from ancient galaxies that were gravitationally ripped apart several billion years ago. The mayhem happened 4 billion light-years away
