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: 

Spot spotted! #JunoCam raw images from my #Jupiter #GreatRedSpot flyby are available now. Download, process + share https://t.co/zx6fcc7Fzu pic.twitter.com/NJafDJVVW6 — NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) July 12, 2017

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!

I’m seeing spots! Check out #Jupiter’s #GreatRedSpot in these stunning citizen scientist-processed #JunoCam images https://t.co/FWLvPvIG9h pic.twitter.com/ej2bI9NlDK — NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) July 12, 2017