NASA just released Juno’s brand new images of Jupiter’s red spot — and they’re jaw-dropping

NASA just released stunning new photos of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a swirling space storm that’s 1.3 times the width of the Earth.

The photos give us a closer look at the Great Red Spot than ever before. They were taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it zoomed by Jupiter for the sixth time, on July 10.

Scientists have been monitoring the Great Red Spot storm since 1830. Some believe the storm has been ongoing for about 350 years.

“Jupiter’s mysterious Great Red Spot is probably the best-known feature of Jupiter,” Scott Bolton, a principal investigator of Juno at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a NASA release. “Now, Juno and her cloud-penetrating science instruments will dive in to see how deep the roots of this storm go, and help us understand how this giant storm works and what makes it so special.”

See the brand new images of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot