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Credit & Copyright: E. Karkoschka (Univ. of Arizona),
NASA
Explanation:
The giant planet Uranus is faint and featureless when
viewed in visible light.
But
this pair of
near-infrared mosaics from the
Hubble Space Telescope's
NICMOS camera reveals
moons, rings, and clouds of
this distant gas planet.
The color coded images highlight different atmospheric layers -
blue represents the deepest layers while the highest
cloud features have a reddish tinge.
Racing around the planet, high, bright clouds are seen to
move substantially between the two pictures taken only ninety minutes apart.
Ring systems are a common to
the solar system's giant planets.
Here the
main Uranian ring seems to vary in width
and is clearly brightest near the top.
The eight specks beyond the ring system are
small Uranian moons which
also show counter-clockwise motion
over ninety minutes as traced by the
arrows on the right hand image.
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A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Uranus - clouds - ring
Publications with words: Uranus - clouds - ring
See also: