Hubble’s takes its annual look at the solar systems four gas giants. Image: Jupiter. Image: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL team
The Hubble Space Telescope has completed what NASA calls its “annual grand tour of the Solar System,” capturing stunning views of the four gas giants – Jupiter on 4 September; Saturn on 12 September; Uranus on 25 October; and Neptune on 7 September. Even though passing spacecraft and orbiters have sent back close-up views of all four worlds and multiple moons during visits over the past half century, the cold atmospheres of the gas giants are always changing. Using Hubble to keep tabs on Earth’s outer Solar System neighbours provides valuable insights into the dynamic processes at work under the cloudtops that shape weather patterns and seasons.
Jupiter. Image: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL teamSaturn. Image: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL teamUranus. Image: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL teamNeptune. Image: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL team
Observers in Western Europe with a clear view to the south-southeast at nautical dawn can watch the changing configuration two prominent naked-eye planets over the next few mornings, culminating in a beautiful close conjunction of Venus and Jupiter on 22 January 2019.
In the small hours of Friday, 16 October, innermost planet Mercury reaches its greatest westerly elongation from the Sun. For those of you in the UK with a flat, unobscured eastern horizon and willing to get up an hour before sunrise, the next few days provide your best opportunity to see Mercury from the Northern Hemisphere during 2015.
In this Hubble Space Telescope image we see an irregular dwarf galaxy known as UGC 4459, located in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear). While UGC 4459’s diffused and disorganised stellar population of several billion sounds impressive, this is small when compared to the 200 to 300 billion stars in the Milky Way.
