’On Jupiter, a storm has raged for at least 400 years.
We see it as a vast red ellipse in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere, and it’s always been called The Great Red Spot. It was already there when the first telescopes were aimed at Jupiter in the 1600s, so no one knows how old it truly is.
But now it has a companion. In 2000, three storms merged to form a new, much bigger one. It’s smaller than the Red Spot but still big enough to easily swallow the Earth.
New features like this are given designations by astronomers to make it easier to refer to them. Everyone is naturally calling this storm “Red Jr.”, of course, but the official name is…
… Oval BA.
Someone who observes Jupiter must be a fan of my blog. There’s really no other obvious explanation.’
