Jupiter’s third spot may not be around for long.

Images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope show the third spot, the smallest of the three, recently passed under the Great Red Spot and now is a pale version of its former self. Meanwhile, the planet’s second-largest spot passed by its neighbor apparently unscathed.

The Space Telescope Science Institute, which coordinates the use of the orbiting Hubble telescope, released a series of three images taken since mid-May on Thursday.

The institute said some astronomers now predict the so-called Baby Spot will now get pulled back into the Giant Red Spot and disappear.

The second spot, dubbed Red Spot Jr., appeared in the spring of 2006 while the Great Red Spot has been observed for centuries. Some believe the new spots may be due to climate change on Jupiter.

Britain became separated from mainland Europe after a catastrophic flood some time before 200,000 years ago, a sonar study of the English Channel confirms.

The images reveal deep scars on the Channel bed that must have been cut by a sudden, massive discharge of water.

Scientists tell the journal Nature that the torrent probably came from a giant lake in what is now the North Sea.

Some event – perhaps an earthquake – caused the lake’s rim to breach at the Dover Strait, they believe.

Dr Sanjeev Gupta, from Imperial College London, and colleagues say the discharge would have been one of the most significant megafloods in recent Earth history, and provides an explanation for Britain’s island status.

“This event, or series of events, that caused [the breach] changed the course of Britain’s history,” Dr Gupta told BBC News.

“If this hadn’t happened, Britain would always have been a peninsula of Europe. There would have been no need for a Channel Tunnel and you could always have walked across from France into Britain, as early humans did prior to this event.”

I blame global cooling, or maybe global warming.