Jupiter's Great Red Spot Likely One Big UV 'Sunburn' — forbes.com

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, which has tantalized astronomers for centuries, may be caused by something as surprisingly mundane as ultraviolet (UV) “tanning” at extremely high altitude, say researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). New analysis of NASA Cassini mission observations made during a December 2000 Jupiter flyby, coupled with ground-based lab experiments, point to very high altitude solar photolysis (or the molecular breakup) of ammonia and hydrocarbons at the top of this puzzling red vortex, located in our largest planet’s southern hemisphere.

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