Red Eye Expedition

Red Eye Expedition of 2105 aka the The Great Red Spot Descent

The Great Red Spot is a great anti-cyclonic (high pressure) storm akin to a hurricane on Earth, but it is enormous (three Earths would fit within its boundaries) and it has persisted for at least the 400 years that humans have observed it through telescopes. Since it is anti-cyclonic in Jupiter's Southern hemisphere, the rotation is counterclockwise, with a period of about 6 days. (A hurricane in Earth's Southern hemisphere rotates clockwise because it is a low pressure system.) The clouds associated with the Spot appear to be about 8 km above neighboring cloud tops. The following two figures show a recent Galileo view of the Great Red Spot, and a closeup of the turbulence in its vicinity.

While the moons of Jupiter have all been visited and surveyed by 2105, Jupiter itself remained largely unexplored, mostly due to the extreme conditions. However advances in enviromental protection technology made it technically feasible to send manned expeditions to gad giants. The first such Expedition by Terrans was to Neptune and considered a scientific success. Norm Stanley of Earth, an eccentric billionaire and often nicknamed the Ahab of the 22nd Century, for his obsession with the Jupiter storm. in 2105 he funded an expedition to Jupiter with the expressed goal to desecend into the Red Eye Storm and take atmospheric samples and to determine the reason for the red coloring. On September 5th, 2105 he and a seven man team desecended into the Eye, wearing the latest Gas Giant protection gear of Enroe Industries. All contact to the team was lost on September 6th, 2105

See also: the Cause of the Storm