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Rendezvous with Jupiter's Great Red Spot – First raw images of the iconic storm are here! (Pics inside)

This mission was the closest a spacecraft has ever flown directly over the 16,000km-wide great red spot, passing as close as 3,500km above the planet and about 9,000km above the clouds of the colossal storm itself.

Rendezvous with Jupiter's Great Red Spot – First raw images of the iconic storm are here! (Pics inside)

New Delhi: With a spectacular finish to Monday's historical flyby of Jupiter's iconic Great Red Spot, NASA's Juno spacecraft has delivered the first raw, close-up images of the giant storm.

The gigantic, swirling storm that has made the largest known hurricane on Earth look like a dwarf in comparison, looks even mightier up close.

Today, scientists know the Great Red Spot is there and it’s been there for a while, but they still struggle to learn what causes its swirl of reddish hues. The images not only reveal the expanse of the storm, but may also be a step forward in finding out the reason behind its extraordinary colour.

“The main impression I have is the beauty of them,” Jared Espley, Juno program scientist at Nasa HQ in Washington, told the Guardian. “These are works of natural art.”

This mission was the closest a spacecraft has ever flown directly over the 16,000km-wide great red spot, passing as close as 3,500km above the planet and about 9,000km above the clouds of the colossal storm itself.

Check out the images below: 

And of course, NASA invited its citizen scientists to submit their own creations of the images and the response has been amazing! Check it out!