From: James Wight
Date: 24 May 2007
Subject: Oval BA

Hi Michael

I heard you were looking for some information on Jupiter's Junior Red Spot, and 
I thought I might be able to help.

For centuries, astronomers have studied a huge storm, much larger than the Earth, 
on Jupiter, which has become known as the "Great Red Spot". In addition to the 
Great Red Spot, Jupiter has several smaller white ovals and brown ovals. These 
storms can last anywhere from hours to years, but the only one to rival the Great 
Red Spot began its life as three smaller white ovals back in 1939. Then, in 1998, 
two of the ovals merged, and the newly-formed oval proceeded to merge with the 
third in 2000 to form what we now know as Oval BA. In 2005, astronomers noticed 
that Oval BA was slowly turning red. All the time, this oval is growing larger 
and larger, and spinning faster and faster. It is currently about half the size 
of the Great Red Spot, and has been dubbed "Red Spot Junior" or the "Little Red 
Spot" by many astronomers, though its official name is still Oval BA.

You might be interested in a couple of articles from the NASA website:
http://sse.jpl.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=18495
http://sse.jpl.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=19855

and a couple of less in-depth articles from ABC Online:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1702248.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1912362.htm

and the Wikipedia page on Oval BA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oval_BA

Hope you find this information useful,
James