Learnings provide insights into capabilities needed for direct-imaging of exoplanets
Uranus, the planet second most distant from our Sun, has been described as mysterious, strange, and fairly unknown to those of us here on Earth. However, in astronomy, these terms are pretty relative. Compared to the remote, dark stretches of the early universe or oddball exoplanets dozens of light-years from our solar system, researchers actually know a lot about Uranus.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is among the observatories that can view the planet in high resolution, showing up-close details of the planet's atmospheric features.
Astronomers have now taken advantage of this viewpoint in a new way. They viewed Uranus in high resolution with Hubble, and at the same time, with the New Horizons spacecraft from 6.5 billion miles away, where the planet appears as just a splotch. This combined perspective can help teach them more about what to expect while imaging planets around other stars — Hubble provides context for what the atmosphere is actually doing when it was observed with New Horizons.
Find additional articles, images, and videos at HubbleSite.org
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