NASA’s Hubble Celebrates Decade of Monitoring Outer Planets

Two views of Jupiter showcase the wealth of knowledge supplied by the spectral filters on the Hubble House Telescope’s Huge Area Digital Camera 3 (WFC3) science instrument. At left, the RGB composite is created utilizing three filters at wavelengths just like the colours seen by the human eye. At proper, the wavelength bounds are widened past the seen range to increase simply into the ultraviolet (UV) and infrared regimes. People can’t understand these prolonged wavelengths; however, some animals (comparable to mantis shrimp, whose eyes operate equally to sure sensors on some NASA missions) are capable of detecting infrared and ultraviolet gentle. The result’s a vivid disk that reveals UV-absorbing lofty hazes as orange (over the poles and in three giant storms, together with the Nice Crimson Spot) and freshly-formed ice as white (compact storm plumes simply north of the equator). Astronomers, together with the OPAL group, use these filters (and others not proven right here) to review variations in cloud thickness, altitude, and chemical make-up.

NASA, ESA, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC), Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley); Picture Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)