Enlarge / Enhanced Juno image of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot in 2018. It is likely not the same one observed by Cassini in the 1600s. (credit: Gerald Eichstadt and Sean Doran/CC BY-NC-SA)

The planet Jupiter is particularly known for its so-called Great Red Spot, a swirling vortex in the gas giant's atmosphere that has been around since at least 1831. But how it formed and how old it is remain matters of debate. Astronomers in the 1600s, including Giovanni Cassini, also reported a similar spot in their observations of Jupiter that they dubbed the "Permanent Spot." This prompted scientists to question whether the spot Cassini observed is the same one we see today. We now have an answer to that question: The spots are not the same, according to a new paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

“From the measurements of sizes and movements, we deduced that it is highly unlikely that the current Great Red Spot was the ‘Permanent Spot’ observed by Cassini,” said co-author Agustín Sánchez-Lavega of the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain. “The ‘Permanent Spot’ probably disappeared sometime between the mid-18th and 19th centuries, in which case we can now say that the longevity of the Red Spot exceeds 190 years.”

The planet Jupiter was known to Babylonian astronomers in the 7th and 8th centuries BCE, as well as to ancient Chinese astronomers; the latter's observations would eventually give birth to the Chinese zodiac in the 4th century BCE, with its 12-year cycle based on the gas giant's orbit around the Sun. In 1610, aided by the emergence of telescopes, Galileo Galilei famously observed Jupiter's four largest moons, thereby bolstering the Copernican heliocentric model of the solar system.

Enlarge / Michigan's State Maritime Archaeologist Wayne R. Lusardi takes notes underwater at the Lake Huron WWII wreckage of 2nd Lt. Frank Moody's P-39 Airacobra. Moody, one of the famed Tuskagee Airmen, fatally crashed in 1944. (credit: National Geographic)

In April 1944, a pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen, Second Lieutenant Frank Moody, was on a routine training mission when his plane malfunctioned. Moody lost control of the aircraft and plunged to his death in the chilly waters of Lake Huron. His body was recovered two months later, but the airplane was left at the bottom of the lake—until now. Over the last few years, a team of divers working with the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum in Detroit has been diligently recovering the various parts of Moody's plane to determine what caused the pilot's fatal crash.

That painstaking process is the centerpiece of The Real Red Tails, a new documentary from National Geographic narrated by Sheryl Lee Ralph (Abbot Elementary). The documentary features interviews with the underwater archaeologists working to recover the plane, as well as firsthand accounts from Moody's fellow airmen and stunning underwater footage from the wreck itself.

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first Black military pilots in the US Armed Forces and helped pave the way for the desegregation of the military. The men painted the tails of their P-47 planes red, earning them the nickname the Red Tails. (They initially flew Bell P-39 Airacobras like Moody's downed plane, and later flew P-51 Mustangs.) It was then-First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who helped tip popular opinion in favor of the fledgling unit when she flew with the Airmen's chief instructor, C. Alfred Anderson, in March 1941. The Airmen earned praise for their skill and bravery in combat during World War II, with members being awarded three Distinguished Unit Citations, 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 14 Bronze Stars, 60 Purple Hearts, and at least one Silver Star.

Enlarge / Ernest Shackleton died on board the Quest in 1922. Forty years later, the ship sank off Canada's Atlantic Coast. (credit: Tore Topp/Royal Canadian Geographical Society)

Famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton famously defied the odds to survive the sinking of his ship, Endurance, which became trapped in sea ice in 1914. His luck ran out on his follow-up expedition; he died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1922 on board a ship called Quest. The ship survived that expedition and sailed for another 40 years, eventually sinking in 1962 after its hull was pierced by ice on a seal-hunting run. Shipwreck hunters have now located the remains of the converted Norwegian sealer in the Labrador Sea, off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The wreckage of Endurance was found in pristine condition in 2022 at the bottom of the Weddell Sea.

The Quest expedition's relatively minor accomplishments might lack the nail-biting drama of the Endurance saga, but the wreck is nonetheless historically significant. "His final voyage kind of ended that Heroic Age of Exploration, of polar exploration, certainly in the south," renowned shipwreck hunter David Mearns told the BBC. "Afterwards, it was what you would call the scientific age. In the pantheon of polar ships, Quest is definitely an icon."

As previously reported, Endurance set sail from Plymouth, Massachusetts, on August 6, 1914, with Shackleton joining his crew in Buenos Aires, Argentina. By January 1915, the ship had become hopelessly locked in sea ice, unable to continue its voyage. For 10 months, the crew endured the freezing conditions, waiting for the ice to break up. The ship's structure remained intact, but by October 25, Shackleton realized Endurance was doomed. He and his men opted to camp out on the ice some two miles (3.2 km) away, taking as many supplies as they could with them.