Hubble Space Telescope Keeps a Vigilant Eye on Weather on Other Worlds
Wandering across the heavens, the bright planets Jupiter and Saturn were named by the Romans after their most powerful gods. Not until the 1700s and 1800s were two more planets uncovered, telescopically, far beyond Saturn. They were named after the Greek god Uranus and the Roman god Neptune.
Early skywatchers could never have imagined that robotic emissaries would be sent along a perilous route from Earth to travel across millions and billions of miles to actually visit these wonder worlds. The close-up pictures from NASA's pair of Voyager spacecraft mesmerized an entire generation in the 1980s. But these spacecraft visits were mere snapshots collecting precious data spanning just a few months —like a tour bus barreling across the United Sates.
Along came Hubble to pick up where this interplanetary "Lewis and Clark" expedition left off. Astronomers were realizing that the outer planets were far more complex than imagined. There was a lot more left to be learned about their turbulent, colorful, and frigid atmospheres. The Hubble program called OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy) has now obtained a full decade's worth of observations of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Hubble is essentially being used as an interplanetary weatherman to study meteorology on other worlds. And, this gives fresh insights into the behavior of complex weather on Earth, and among planets across our galaxy.
Find additional articles, images, and videos at HubbleSite.org
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