This visible-light image of Jupiter was created from data captured on 11 January 2017 using the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s the solar system’s largest moon and slightly bigger than the planet Mercury. The spot, which is actually a gigantic, centuries-old storm, stands out next to one of Jupiter’s moons, called Ganymede. In a January image of Jupiter, the planet’s Great Red Spot is in the limelight. “What we’ve been watching over time (using Hubble), is this buildup of this high-altitude haze in the atmosphere, and the exact purpose or the exact mechanism behind it, we don’t know, that’s one of the things we’re studying.” You didn’t see clouds, you didn’t see haze, you didn’t see anything … so there was a polar cap then, but we couldn’t see it,” Simon said. “If you think back to the original Voyager pictures of Uranus, it was just kind of a pale blue ball with nothing on it. In 2028, when the northern summer solstice approaches, NASA scientists predict the cap will grow even brighter, and will give the Hubble a clear view as Uranus’ north pole will be aimed directly toward Earth. Bright haze covers the cap in the later image. In images captured by the Hubble telescope (from left) in 20, the increased size and brightness of Uranus' north polar cap is apparent. Since following Uranus’ polar cap and how it changes with the seasons, scientists had found that neither pole was bright during the planet’s equinox in 2007, when it was fully illuminated by the sun. The OPAL project’s goal is to obtain observations of the outer planets to help scientists better understand their atmospheric dynamics and evolution. We’re trying to build up this database so we can understand the processes going on in these atmospheres.” A year on Jupiter takes 12 Earth years, and it just gets worse from there. “For us to be able to understand the processes going on, we just need more time coverage. Amy Simon, the senior scientist for Planetary Atmospheres Research at NASA, who was involved with these Hubble observations. These are gigantic atmospheres, they’re changing all the time,” said Dr. You had a textbook picture you didn’t see them change. “The view I always had of the planets when I was a kid was that they were very static. A NASA research team is tracking the size and brightness of the north polar cap and reporting that the haze appears to get brighter each year. In one of the first images of the Hubble Space Telescope’s Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy, or OPAL, Program, the north polar cap of Uranus appears to be brighter compared with its appearance in a November 2014 image. In Hubble’s November 2022 image of Uranus, the planet’s north pole has a large off-white circle, caused from a thickened photochemical haze that resembles the smog produced over cities, alongside several storms near the circle’s edge, according to NASA. That’s especially true for Uranus, with its peculiar, tilted axis that causes one hemisphere to be completely without sunlight for about 42 years at a time. But the gas giants still experience extreme weather. With Jupiter at about 484 million miles (779 million kilometers) away from our sun and Uranus about 1.8 billion miles (3 billion kilometers) away, each takes longer to orbit the sun, which means a slower pace of seasons. Appearing a tenth of a degree apart, the alignment known as the "great conjunction" has also been called the "Christmas Star." (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) Charlie Riedel/APĪ stunning lineup of five planets will decorate the night sky The two planets are in their closest observable alignment since 1226. People are silhouetted against the sky at dusk as they watch the alignment of Saturn and Jupiter, Monday, Dec.
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