These
four images of clouds in a portion of Jupiter's southern hemisphere show
steps in the consolidation of three 'white oval' storms into one over a
three-year span of time. They were obtained on four dates, from Sept. 18,
1997, to Sept. 2, 2000, by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The widths of
the white ovals range from about 8,000 km to 12,000 km . North is up and
east is to the right. |
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The
top image shows three white oval storms, which had coexisted for about 60
years. They were nicknamed FA, DE and BC, in order from west to east. By
mid-1998, as shown in the second image, the two easternmost storms had merged
into one, called BE. By October 1999, as shown in the third image, the merged
oval and the last of the original three were approaching each other, but
they were separated by a dark storm, called o1, between them. The two white
oval storms later merged into a single storm, as shown in the final image
from September 2000. |
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