NASA's Hubble Telescope Reveals Unique Ultraviolet Image of Jupiter's Great Red Spot, Aiding Research on Planet's Superstorm System

Ultraviolet image reveals high-altitude haze particles and their absorption of light, helping scientists further understand the shrinking storm's 150-year-old system and map out deep water clouds in Jupiter's atmosphere.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captures a unique ultraviolet image of Jupiter, revealing high altitude haze particles that absorb light at these wavelengths. This results in Jupiter's Great Red Spot appearing blue in the image instead of its usual red.
This image has been generated using three different wavelengths of ultraviolet light, which astronauts assigned to three different colors—blue, green, and red—to provide a sense of how the image might look to the human eye.
The Great Red Spot is a massive storm on Jupiter, which has been raging for at least 150 years and possibly as long as 400 years. However, findings from another image taken by Hubble in 2019 confirmed that the Great Red Spot is shrinking.
The new ultraviolet image is part of ongoing research into Jupiter’s superstorm system. The next step in the research is to use this data for mapping deep water clouds and outlining 3D cloud structures in Jupiter’s atmosphere.
The human eye cannot see ultraviolet light, so space observers use telescopes like Hubble, which are sensitive to ultraviolet light. Hubble’s positioning outside of Earth's atmosphere allows it to capture these ultraviolet wavelengths, which are mostly blocked before reaching Earth's surface.