This dramatic view of Jupiter's <a href="/jupiter/atmosphere/J_clouds_GRS.html&dev=1/moons/ozone_strato.html">Great Red Spot</a> and its surroundings was obtained by <a href="/space_missions/voyager.html&dev=1/moons/ozone_strato.html">Voyager 1</a> on Feb. 25, 1979, when the spacecraft was 5.7 million miles (9.2 million kilometers) from Jupiter. Cloud details as small as 100 miles (160 kilometers) across can be seen here. The colorful, wavy cloud pattern to the left of the Red Spot is a region of extraordinarily complex end variable wave motion.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA</em></small></p>March 2012 marks the first anniversary of the 9.0 magnitude <a href="/earth/geology/quake_1.html&dev=1/moons/ozone_strato.html">earthquake</a>, <a href="/earth/tsunami1.html&dev=1/moons/ozone_strato.html">tsunami</a>, and resulting nuclear accident in Japan on <a href="/headline_universe/march112011earthquaketsunami.html&dev=1/moons/ozone_strato.html">11 March 2011</a>. The tsunami did massive damage, wiping out entire villages and killing ~16,000 people, and leading to one of the most serious nuclear accidents in history. This image shows before and after photos of the area north of Sendai, where 10,000 people were lost.<p><small><em>Photos by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html?hp">GeoEye/EyeQ</a>.</em></small></p>A near-Earth <a href="/our_solar_system/asteroids.html&dev=1/moons/ozone_strato.html">asteroid</a> - named 2012 DA14 by astronomers - passed within 17,200 miles from Earth on February 15, 2013. On closest approach at about 1:25 p.m. CST on February 15, although it was within the orbit of the <a href="/earth/moons_and_rings.html&dev=1/moons/ozone_strato.html">Moon</a> and even geosynchronous <a href="/space_missions/satellites.html&dev=1/moons/ozone_strato.html">satellites</a>, it didn't strike Earth! Find out more from <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid20130201315144.html">NASA</a>! Fragments of a meteorite hit Chelyabinsk, Russia on 2/15/2013 <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-russia-meteorite-idUSBRE91E05Z20130215">injuring over 500</a>. Learn about <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/our_solar_system/meteors/meteors.html">meteors and meteorites</a>.<p><small><em>NASA/JPL-CalTech</em></small></p>Stars don't last forever. Occasionally, a star bigger than our Sun will end its life in a huge explosion, called a <a href="/the_universe/supernova.html&dev=1/moons/ozone_strato.html">supernova</a>. The center of the star collapses in less than a second, blowing away the outer layers of the star. There are many beautiful images of supernova remnants, the expanding shell of gas made up of the outer layers of the original star. This image is the Vela Supernova Remnant.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of the Anglo-Australian Observatory/Royal Observatory Edinburgh</em></small></p>This historic image is the first ever taken from a spacecraft in orbit about <a href="/mercury/mercury.html&dev=1/moons/ozone_strato.html">Mercury</a>, the innermost planet of the solar system. Taken on 3/29/2011 by <a href="/space_missions/robotic/messenger/messenger.html&dev=1/moons/ozone_strato.html">MESSENGER</a>, it shows numerous craters across the <a href="/mercury/Interior_Surface/Surface/surface_overview.html&dev=1/moons/ozone_strato.html">surface</a> of the planet. Temperatures there can reach over 800F because Mercury is so close to the Sun and rotates so slowly. MESSENGER entered orbit around Mercury earlier in March 2011.<p><small><em>NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington</em></small></p>On May 20, 2013, a massive EF5 <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/tornado.html">tornado</a> hit Moore, Oklahoma, devastating communities and lives. The tornado, on the ground for 40 minutes, took a path through a subdivision of homes, destroying block after block of homes, and hitting two elementary schools just as school was ending as well as a hospital. Hundreds of people were injured, and 24 were killed.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of Ks0stm, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license</em></small></p>


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Impact on Jupiter - July 2009

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