Fascinating New Images From Hubble Space Telescope!

95
Fascinating New Images From Hubble Space Telescope!

There are 8 fascinating planets (and of course, Pluto) in our solar system. Last week, NASA and the European Space Agency published new images of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, and made us remember the beauties in our immediate surroundings once again.

All four of these planets are gas giants, which means they’re very different from the rocky Earth or Mars. As NASA poetically puts it about the Hubble images, “Spreading between 500 million and 3 billion miles from the sun, these monsters are as far away as they are mysterious, they live so far from the sun that the water instantly freezes into solid ice.”

Hubble, a joint project of NASA and ESA, monitors exoplanets each year so scientists can track weather and atmospheric changes over time. The images are part of the Legacy of the Outer Planets Atmospheres program (OPAL) and were captured in September and October.

The telescope noticed new storms on Jupiter on September 4. “Every time we get new data, I am amazed by the image quality and detail in cloud features,” says Amy Simon of Goddard Space Flight Center.

The appearance of Saturn on September 7 revealed color changes due to seasonal changes. Hubble’s sharp eyes allow researchers to examine which bands of the striped planet are changing colour.

Uranus has a bright white polar region in Hubble’s October 25 image. “Researchers are investigating how the glowing polar cap is caused by changes in atmospheric methane gas concentration and the properties of haze particles, as well as atmospheric flow patterns,” NASA says.

Neptune appears as a blue marble in the telescope’s September 7 image. NASA states that the planet is very similar to what it was when the Voyager 2 mission looked at it in 1989.

Hubble has spent more than three decades unlocking the secrets of space. The telescope team is currently working on a technical glitch, but one of the main science tools is working while troubleshooting. If all goes as planned, we can expect Hubble to deliver another round of planetary images in 2022.