Fact Sheet
A Big Spot
The New Horizons spacecraft snapped the best pictures to date of the Little Red Spot, a giant storm on Jupiter that first appeared almost a decade ago, when it flew past Jupiter on February 28. The Little Red Spot, at lower right in this picture, is smaller than the famous Great Red Spot, but it's still almost as big as Earth. It survived a close passage by the Great spot last year. Although this image shows details as small as a city, New Horizons snapped even sharper images as it drew closer to Jupiter a few hours later. Those pictures were stored onboard the craft, and will be transmitted to Earth in the next few weeks. New Horizons flew past Jupiter to get the gravitational "boost" it needs to reach Pluto. [NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI]
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