Jupiter in Infrared from Hubble
Image Credit:
NASA,
ESA,
Hubble;
Data:
Michael Wong
(UC Berkeley)
et al.;
Processing &
License:
Judy Schmidt
Jupiter looks a bit different in infrared light.
To better understand
Jupiter's cloud motions and to help NASA's robotic
Juno spacecraft understand the
planetary context of the small fields that it sees, the
Hubble Space Telescope is being directed to
regularly image the entire Jovian giant.
The colors of Jupiter
being monitored go beyond the normal human visual range to include both
ultraviolet and
infrared light.
Featured here in 2016, three bands of near-infrared light have been digitally reassigned into a mapped color image.
Jupiter appears
different in infrared
partly because the amount of sunlight reflected back is distinct,
giving differing cloud heights and latitudes discrepant brightnesses.
Nevertheless, many familiar features on
Jupiter remain, including the
light zones and dark belts that circle the planet near the equator, the
Great Red Spot on the lower left, and the
string-of-pearls storm systems south of the Great Red Spot.
The poles glow because high altitude haze there is energized by charged
particles from Jupiter's
magnetosphere.
Juno has now completed
10 of 12 planned science orbits of Jupiter and continues to record data that are helping humanity to
understand not only Jupiter's weather but
what lies beneath Jupiter's thick clouds.