Hubble’s Decade Studying the Outer Planets

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

All imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA.

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Text: December 13, 2024. Hubble's decade studying the outer planets. A diagram depicts multiple observations of Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter, each labelled by year. 

 

Text: NASA is celebrating 10 years of the Hubble Space Telescope's Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) Program. Each year, Hubble studies the giant planets when they are closest to Earth, allowing us to observe changes over time. Hubble has watched Jupiter's huge storm, the Great Red Spot, shrink while its winds picked up. An animation depicts the activity of the Great Red Spot over time as it shrinks and speeds. Text: Using various filters, Hubble has seen subtle changes in Saturn's clouds and rings. Six photographs of Saturn are each shaded differently. Text: On Uranus, Hubble has watched as the north pole approaches its summer season, forming multiple storms of methane ice-crystal clouds and a thickening polar cloud cap. Two photos of Uranus labelled 2014 and 2022, respectively, reveal different orientations of its geographical features and its moon. Text: Hubble has seen dark storms come and go on Neptune, and made a connection between the planet's weather and the activity of the distant Sun. An image of the deep blue Neptune has dark blotches in the northern hemisphere. Images of Saturn flash by, each labelled with a sequentially later year and reflecting a slightly different angle. Text: Thanks to Hubble's dedicated OPAL program, our "cosmic backyard" has never felt more familiar. This news was brought to you in part by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD. 

 

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