Sale:: The largest storm in the solar system

Sunday, March 8, 2026

The largest storm in the solar system


	March 8, 2026

Original photo by NASA Image Collection/ Alamy Stock Photo

Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a storm that's bigger than Earth.

Earth's moon has its craters, Saturn has its rings, and Jupiter has its Great Red Spot. Far more than a cosmetic anomaly, the planet's most distinctive feature is actually a massive storm. The ever-swirling vortex is thought to have been raging for at least 300 years, but up until recently, little was known about it. Our knowledge of the 10,000-mile-wide storm expanded around late 2021, after NASA's Juno mission passed over it twice — but we may not have much longer to study it.

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		Numbers Don't Lie

Moons of Jupiter

80-95

Objects in the night sky brighter than Jupiter (the moon and Venus)

Earths that could fit inside Jupiter

1,299

Spacecraft that have visited Jupiter since 1973

Jupiter also has rings.

When most of us think of ringed planets, Saturn comes to mind first. But Saturn isn't the only planet in our solar system with rings: Jupiter has them too, as do fellow gas giants Neptune and Uranus. Relatively faint and composed primarily of dust, the Jovian rings have three main elements: the halo, main ring, and gossamer rings (of which there are two). The halo is wide, doughnut-shaped, and closest to the planet itself. The main ring, which is brighter and thinner, is where the moons Adrastea and Metis orbit; the dust it's made up of is thought to have been ejected from those two small natural satellites. Then there are the extremely faint, wide gossamer rings, which extend beyond the orbit of moon Amalthea. Jupiter's rings and moons were recently captured in infrared by the James Webb Space Telescope, offering one of the most stunning views of them yet.

Today's edition of Interesting Facts was written by Michael Nordine and edited by Bess Lovejoy.