Archivo de imágenes de Hubble
Imagen de escala y brújula para la mancha oscura de Neptuno
This new Hubble Space Telescope image confirms the presence of a dark vortex in the atmosphere of Neptune.The full visible-light image at left shows that the dark feature resides near and below a patch of bright clouds in the planet's southern hemisphere. The dark spot measures r...
- Fecha
- Jan 1, 2016
- Misión
- Hubble Space Telescope
- ID de archivo
- hubblesite-images-2016-22-3752-image
This new Hubble Space Telescope image confirms the presence of a dark vortex in the atmosphere of Neptune.
The full visible-light image at left shows that the dark feature resides near and below a patch of bright clouds in the planet's southern hemisphere. The dark spot measures roughly 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) across. Other high-altitude clouds can be seen at the planet's equatorial region and polar regions.
The full-color image at top right is a close-up of the complex feature. Pancake-shaped clouds above the spot form when ambient air is perturbed and diverted upward over the vortex. The vortex is a high-pressure system.
The image at bottom right shows that the vortex is best seen at blue wavelengths. Only Hubble has the high resolution required for identifying such weather features on distant Neptune.
Though similar features were seen during the Voyager 2 flyby of Neptune in 1989 and by Hubble in 1994, this vortex is the first one observed on the planet in the 21st century.
In September 2015, the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program, a long-term Hubble Space Telescope project that annually captures global maps of the outer planets, revealed a dark spot close to the location of the bright clouds, which had been tracked from the ground. By viewing the vortex a second time, the new Hubble images, taken by Wide Field Camera 3 on May 16, 2016, confirm that OPAL really detected a long-lived feature. With the new data, the team created a higher-quality map of the vortex and its surroundings.
The team, led by Mike Wong, also included the OPAL team (Wong, Amy Simon (GSFC), and Glenn Orton (JPL)), UC Berkeley collaborators (Imke de Pater, Joshua Tollefson, and Katherine de Kleer), Heidi Hammel (AURA), Statia Luszcz-Cook (AMNH), Ricardo Hueso and Agustin Sánchez-Lavega (Universidad del Pais Vasco), Marc Delcroix (Société Astronomique de France), Larry Sromovsky and Patrick Fry (University of Wisconsin), and Christoph Baranec (University of Hawaii).
Credits
NASA, ESA, and Z. Levay (STScI);Acknowledgment: M.H. Wong and J. Tollefson (UC Berkeley)
Detalles de la imagen
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Neptune |
| Object Description | Planet |
| Distance | The semi-major axis of Neptune's orbit about the sun is 30.06 astronomical units (roughly 2.8 billion miles or 4.5 billion kilometers). |
| Dimensions | Neptune has a diameter of roughly 30,800 miles (49,600 kilometers) at the equator. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | Data were provided by the HST proposal : M.H. Wong (PI), I. de Pater, J. Tollefson, and K. de Kleer (UC Berkeley), H. Hammel (Space Science Institute), S. Cook (AMNH), R. Hueso and A. Sanchez-Lavega (University of the Basque Country, Spain), A. Simon (NASA/GSFC), M. Delcroix (French Astronomical Society, SAF), L. Sromovsky and P. Fry (University of Wisconsin, Madison), G. Orton (JPL), and C. Baranec (University of Hawaii, Manoa). |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/UVIS |
| Exposure Dates | May 15-16, 2016 |
| Filters | F467M, F547M, and F763M |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the WFC3/UVIS instrument. In the full globe and top detail image, several filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F467M Green: F547M Red: F763M |
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Fuente
La imagen y el material de referencia se acreditan al archivo oficial de la misión enlazado a continuación.
Ver en NASA.gov