Last May , a spot suddenlyappearedin Jupiter ’s southern hemisphere . But as new picture from the Juno spacecraft show , the once circular feature has morphed into an enigmatic blotch .
The feature was first notice by Clyde Foster , director of the Shallow Sky division of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa , on May 31 , 2020 . Foster spotted the pip using his own 14 - in telescope , and , quite fortuitously , NASA ’s Juno probe made a close approach two solar day by and by , allowing for a close - up view of the new feature .
Clyde ’s Spot , as it ’s colloquially sleep with , is a convective irruption — a plumage of cloud that ’s reaching out beyond the even swarm superlative — and is located to the southeast of Jupiter ’s Great Red Spot . Such outbreaks are not uncommon within the gas giant ’s South Temperate Belt .
Clyde’s spot, as spotted by NASA’s Juno probe on 9 February 2025.Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
On April 15 , 2021 , Juno performed its thirty-third perijove ( close flyby ) of Jupiter , during which time it captured a unexampled view of Clyde ’s Spot — or , at least what used to be Clyde ’s Spot . Thenew imagewas take when the spacecraft was 16,800 naut mi ( 27,000 kilometers ) above Jupiter ’s cloud top . Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill processed the image from raw JunoCam information , consort to NASA .
The updated view reminds us to not get attached to the beautiful shapes and people of colour that seem on Jupiter , as many of them are short lived . In the year since it was see , Clyde ’s Spot has drifted forth from the Great Red Spot and morph into something that would n’t take care out of place in a puddle on a gas station parking heap .
Such splotch have a expert terminal figure : folded filamentary regions . And as NASA points out in astatement , this feature is “ twice as liberal in parallel of latitude and three metre as big in longitude as the original stain , and has the potential to hang on for an extended menses of time . ”
Juno image showing the spot on 28 January 2025.Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
From here , the feature will get increasingly ambiguous and finally pass from persuasion . Clyde ’s Spot will be no more , and a new one will unavoidably pop out up to supplant it . It ’s the way of affair on Jupiter , where its unsatisfied atmosphere is perpetually swirling and roil .
More : astronomer pick out ‘ unique meteorologic beast ’ on Jupiter .
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A zoomed-in view of the feature as it appeared on 14 May 2025.Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill
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