Oval BA is the official name of a red storm located in the southern hemisphere of Jupiter in a similar format, though smaller, with the Great Red Spot. To be smaller than the GRS, it was nicknamed "Red Spot Jr." or "Little Red Spot Jr.". A feature of the South Temperate Belt, Oval BA was first observed in 2000 after the merger of three white oval storms, and since then, the resulting vortex intensified.

The white ovals that formed Oval BA dating back to 1939, when the South Temperate Zone was affected by dark spots that effectively divided the area into three long sections. Elmer J. Reese, one of Jupiter observer named the dark sections AB, CD and EF. The spots increase in size, decreasing the remaining segments of the STZ ovals FA, BC and DE. The Oval BC and DE merged in 1998, creating the Oval BE. In March 2000, the ovals BE and FA merged, creating the Oval BA.

The color of the Oval BA began to change into the red in August 2005. On 24 February 2006, the Philippine amateur astronomer Christopher Go discovered the color change, noting that Oval BA acquired a similar hue to the Great Red Spot. As a result, Dr. Tony Phillips of NASA suggested that Oval BA was called "Red Spot Jr." or "Red Jr.

In April 2006, a team of astronomers, believing that Oval BA might have fused with the Great Red Spot in the same year, observed the storms through the Hubble Space Telescope. The storms pass close together every two years, but the passages 2002 and 2004 did not produce anything exciting. Dr. Amy Simon-Miller of the Goddard Space Flight Center predicted that the storm would the closest pass on July 4, 2006. On July 20, the two storms were photographed by the Gemini Observatory without convergence.

We do not know the reason for the color change to red Oval BA. According to a 2008 study by Dr. Santiago Pérez-Hoyos of the University of the Basque Country, the most likely mechanism is a diffusion toward the top of the atmosphere and interior of the vortex of a colored compound or a vapor that may interact with solar photons of high energy in the upper levels of Oval BA.

Oval BA is getting stronger according to observations from the Hubble Space Telescope in 2007. The vortex winds reached 618 km / h; about the same as the winds in the Great Red Spot, much stronger than the winds in progenitors white ovals. In July 2008, Oval BA was a similar size to the Earth, or about half the size of the Great Red Spot.

Oval BA should not be confused with another Jovian storm, the "Little Red Spot", which acquired a red color in May 2008. The Little Red Spot convergeu with GRS in late June and early July 2008, was destroyed to pieces last, with the remaining pieces merging with GRS later. During this meeting, Oval BA was present nearby, but apparently had no role in the destruction of the Little Red Spot.

Source: Wikipedia