Posted on 05/04/2019 3:24:36 PM PDT by DoodleBob
Giant polar cap dominates Uranus; dark tempest is raging on Neptune.
The two major planets beyond Saturn have only been visited once by a spacecraft, albeit briefly. NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft swung by Uranus in 1986, and Neptune in 1989. Our robotic deep-space tourist snapped the only close-up, detailed images of these monstrous worlds. For Neptune, the images revealed a planet with a dynamic atmosphere with two mysterious dark vortices. Uranus, however, appeared featureless. But these views were only brief snapshots. They couldn't capture how the planets' atmospheres change over time, any more than a single snapshot of Earth could tell meteorologists about weather behavior. And, they go through protracted seasonal changes in their multi-decades-long orbits. Ever since the Voyager encounter, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided an opportunity to monitor these worlds like a diligent weatherman.
Since Hubble's launch in 1990, astronomers have used it to amass an album of outer planet images. Yearly monitoring of these giant worlds is now allowing astronomers to study long-term seasonal changes, as well as capture transitory weather patterns. One such elusive event is yet another dark storm on Neptune, shown in the latest Hubble image of the planet...
(Excerpt) Read more at hubblesite.org ...
I believe there are many people arguing for a new unmanned visit to these giants, perhaps encouraged by the success of New Horizons' trip to Pluto. From a Constitutional perspective, NASA shouldn't exist. It came about due to Cold War fears and its predecessor (focused on aviation) was created out of a flimsy Article 1, Section 8 argument for providing for the general welfare. I love my astronomy, but if mankind goes back to the ice giants, I hope it is via a private sector approach.
Finally...since this involves the 7th planet from the Sun, and since this is FR, I'd like to ask you one last time...Conduct yourselves with the utmost maturity.
So, if the planet-that-shall-not-be-named does indeed “roll” in its orbit so that its “polar axis” is near-parallel to the ecliptic normal plane of the rest of the planets, why do these band tilt at a significant angle to the horizontal plane?
On the other hand why are the images do fuzzy? - Hubble images are usually far clearer.
Not a chance.
Whoops...My Black hole just released some matter.
OK, so no referrals to the violent collision that knocked Uranus off its axis? Or, the “dynamic atmosphere surrounding Uranus? Man does not live by good manners alone. Just don’t point ridicule at the weak, I says.
For my money, it’s pretty damn amazing they can get that much detail at all, at that range, from LEO. Hubble pictures of Jupiter and Saturn are “clearer” because J & S are much bigger and much closer.
I new this thread would be interesting.
From what I’ve seen, Hubble photos of these planets have usually been somewhat fuzzy.
they take better images of objects light years away ...
From what I’ve seen, Hubble photos of these planets have usually been somewhat fuzzy.
Wowwww.
It takes better images of MUCH bigger objects further away. Are these pics color enhanced? Because I am surprised how blue they are.
Hubble picture of Jupiter, mean radius = 69911 km
By contrast Uranus has a mean radius of 25362 km.
The features are much larger, that's why they look clearer.
Hubble picture of Spiral Galaxy M100. Left from the Wide Field Camera 1, right from the Wide Field Camera 3. Note the significant improvement in point-spread function. You call that "clearer"? Those dots are whole stars, and not little ones like our Sun. Planets don't even show up.
Sorry but I think Hubble is mostly George Lukas Industrial Light and Magic. It can focus on say Apollo 11 moon lander on the Sea of Tranquility, but can see a Crab Nebula 100 billion light years away clear as a bell.
“Are these pics color enhanced? Because I am surprised how blue they are.”
I recall seeing non-Hubble images of Neptune showing it is as being very deep blue.
In short, to gauge how large these things appear in our sky, we can take the ratio of these things' sizes to their distances
For the galaxy, 50,000 light-years / 72 million light-years = 0.00069
For Pluto, 2400 km / 4675 million km = 0.00000051
Take the ratio of those two and you'll see that the galaxy appears 1300 times bigger than Pluto.
You’re free to have your opinions, but if you want them to be respected they should be based on fact.
Your opinion expressed in in #17 is based on gross ignorance.
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