Acquired in March 2007, this eerie image from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys’s ultraviolet camera show glowing auroral emissions, always present in Jupiter’s polar regions. The aurora is hundreds of kilometers wide and about 250 kilometers above the planet. It is caused by electrically charged particles striking atoms in the upper atmosphere from above, the…
Tag: Hubble
Pluto’s New Moon
Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have identified a new moon in orbit around distant Pluto. Estimated to be between 8 to 21 miles (13 to 31 km) in diameter the moon has been designated P4… at least until a more fitting name can be decided upon. P4 lies between the orbits of Nix and…
A New Look at Neptune
Ok, ok… it’s not “new” (it’s from a HubbleNews article released in 2005) but since I just came across it myself, it’s new to me! So maybe it’s new to you too. 🙂 The video above was created from images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, showing distant Neptune (we’re talking four and a half…
Dust ‘Til Dawn
This image shows a view of Mars taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in August of 2001, after a planetwide storm had completely covered it with windblown dust as fine as cigarette smoke. (The image has been color-edited and magnified 2x from the original by Gordan Ugarkovic.) These dust storms can arise unexpectedly and at…
Auroral Arrhythmia
Just like Earth, Saturn has its own versions of northern (and southern) lights illuminating high-altitude rings around its polar latitudes. Understandably much larger and more powerful than our planet’s auroras, they are nevertheless caused by the same thing: energetic particles streaming out from the sun get caught in Saturn’s magnetic field and are funneled toward…
This Week in Space
Episode 24. Includes: Cool video of new space vehicle tests, Daily Show on NASA boss Charlie Bolden’s Muslim comment, Space Shuttle worker layoffs, last Atlantis shuttle fuel tank, progress we have a problem, and asteroid ready for close up. Provided by SpaceflightNow.com. Can’t view the video above? Watch on YouTube here.
This Week in Space
Season 1, episode 23: SpaceX issues a financial challenge to the big space contractors, last shuttle launches slip, video diary from Mars 500 crew, IKAROS’ successful solar sail, kids discover Martian cave, John Glenn joins the save shuttle fray, Cassini takes a dip in Titan’s atmosphere, new Hubble images show star formation, extreme exoplanet weather,…
Meteor? Darn near killed ‘er.
The bright “fireball” on Jupiter captured on camera the morning of June 3 by amateur astronomers Anthony Wesley and Christopher Go (a still image from Anthony’s video is above, rotated and cropped) is now believed to have been a meteor burning up high in the planet’s atmosphere, and not an impact like the July 2009…
Jupiter Takes a Hit…Again!
Even as the Hubble team released the image above detailing the scars from the July 2009 asteroid impact on Jupiter, another object was on a collision course with our solar system’s giant planet…and Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley was at his station (yet again!) and captured an image of the impact! Read all about it…
Two Decades of Discovery
As this weekend marks the 2oth anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s launch, here’s a video from the Hubble team highlighting just a few of the many discoveries the orbiting observatory has made since first opening its – and our – eyes to the universe. Here’s to many more years of Hubble! Read more on…
This Week in Space
The new IMAX: Hubble 3D astronaut stars and launch party at the Air and Space Museum in DC takes center stage in this edition of This Week in Space with Miles O’Brien. Also, the president prepares to support his new plans for NASA and the shuttle mission may get a stay of execution (as long…
A Patchwork Pluto
The New Horizons spacecraft may still be several years away from its flyby of the outermost ex-planet, but the Hubble Space Telescope is meanwhile grabbing glimpses of the frozen world at the edge of our solar system. The video above is composed of hundreds of individual images of Pluto, assembled over the course of four…
Lights in the Dark 