The first close-up pictures of the “Little Red Spot” of Jupiter – a storm so vast that it covers the equivalent of 70 per cent of the Earth’s diameter – have been taken by a Nasa probe as it swung past the largest member of the solar system on its way to Pluto, the smallest.

The images, which scientists likened to an astronomical version of Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night, are among a remarkable series captured by New Horizons as it flew within 1.4 million miles (2.3 million km) of the planet on February 28. The spacecraft, which is as large as a king-size bed and is 16 months into its nine-year journey to Pluto, has also sent back stunning views of the four largest moons of Jupiter and important new data about its faint rings.

One particularly spectacular image shows Europa, the fourth-largest of the planet’s satellites, rising above the swirling clouds of the gas giant.

Others reveal the intense volcanic activity on the surface of Io, the third-largest Jovian moon. One picture shows a plume of debris thrown into space by a huge eruption from one of the moon’s 400 active volcanoes.

“We’ll be analysing these data for months to come,” said Alan Stern, the principal investigator for the New Horizons mission. “We have collected spectacular scientific products as well as evocative images.”

The Little Red Spot is about half the size of the Great Red Spot. It is a storm that formed over the past decade as three smaller storms merged. It began turning red towards the beginning of last year and scientists will use the pictures to study how these systems form and change colour.

“This is our best look ever of a storm like this in its infancy,” said Hal Weaver, a New Horizons project scientist from Johns Hopkins University, Maryland. “Combined with data from telescopes on and around Earth taken at the same time New Horizons sped past Jupiter, we’re getting an incredible look at the dynamics of weather on giant planets.”

New Horizons was launched in January last year on a mission to Pluto, where it should arrive in July 2015. The craft will survey the icy world, which lost its formal status as a planet last year, and its satellite, Charon.

The probe, is the fastest spacecraft built. It reached 36,000mph (58,000km/h) and then travelled close to Jupiter to use the planet’s gravity to generate a “slingshot effect” that will accelerate it past 50,000mph.

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