Views of Our Solar System

Mercury,
nearest the sun

Credit: NASA

This photomosaic of Mercury was constructed from photos taken by Mariner 10 six hours after the spacecraft flew past the planet on March 29, 1974. The north pole is at the top and the equator extends from left to right about two-thirds down from the top. A large circular basin, about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) in diameter, is emerging from the day-night terminator at left center. Bright rayed craters are prominent in this view of Mercury. One such ray seems to join in both east-west and north-south directions.

Mercury would seem to be one of the least likely places in the solar system to find ice. The closest planet to the Sun has temperatures which can reach over 700 K. The local day on the surface of Mercury is 176 earth-days, so the surface is slowly rotating under a relentless assault from the Sun. Nonetheless, Earth-based radar imaging of Mercury has revealed areas of high radar reflectivity near the north and south poles, which could be indicative of the presence of ice in these regions. There appear to be dozens of these areas with generally circular shapes. Presumably, the ice is located within permanently shadowed craters near the poles, where it may be cold enough for ice to exist over long periods of time. The discovery of ice on the Earth's moon can only serve to strengthen the arguments for ice on Mercury.

Venus in UV Light Credit: L. Esposito (University of Colorado, Boulder), NASA This is a NASA Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet-light image of the planet Venus, taken on January 24 1995, when Venus was at a distance of 70.6 million miles (113.6 kilometers) from Earth. Venus is covered with clouds made of sulfuric acid, rather than the water-vapor clouds found on Earth. These clouds permanently shroud Venus' volcanic surface, which has been radar mapped by spacecraft and from Earth-based telescopes. At ultraviolet wavelengths cloud patterns become distinctive. In particular, a horizontal "Y"-shaped cloud feature is visible near the equator. Similar features were seen from Mariner 10, Pioneer Venus, and Galileo spacecrafts. This global feature might indicate atmospheric waves, analogous to high and low pressure cells on Earth. Bright clouds toward Venus' poles appear to follow latitude lines. The polar regions are bright, possibly showing a haze of small particles overlying the main clouds. The dark regions show the location of enhanced sulfur dioxide near the cloud tops. From previous missions, astronomers know that such features travel east to west along with the Venus' prevailing winds, to make a complete circuit around the planet in four days. Because Venus is closer to the Sun than Earth, the planet appears to go through phases, like the Moon. When Venus swings close to Earth the planet's disk appears to grow in size, but changes from a full disk to a crescent. The image was taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera-2, in PC mode. False color has been used to enhance cloud features.

Mars,
farther from the sun than Earth

Credit: David Crisp and the WFPC2 Science Team (Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology)

The sharpest view of Mars ever taken from Earth was obtained by the recently refurbished NASA Hubble Space Telescope (HST). This stunning portrait was taken with the HST Wide Field Planetary Camera-2 (WFPC2) on March 10, 1997, just before Mars opposition, when the red planet made one of its closest passes to the Earth (about 60 million miles or 100 million km).

At this distance, a single picture element (pixel) in WFPC2's Planetary Camera spans 13 miles (22 km) on the Martian surface.

The Martian north pole is at the top (near the center of the bright polar cap) and East is to the right. The center of the disk is at about 23 degrees north latitude, and the central longitude is near 305 degrees.

This view of Mars was taken on the last day of Martian spring in the northern hemisphere (just before summer solstice). It clearly shows familiar bright and dark markings known to astronomers for more than a century. The annual north polar carbon dioxide frost (dry ice) cap is rapidly sublimating (evaporating from solid to gas), revealing the much smaller permanent water ice cap, along with a few nearby detached regions of surface frost. The receding polar cap also reveals the dark, circular sea' of sand dunes that surrounds the north pole (Olympia Planitia).

Other prominent features in this hemisphere include Syrtis Major Planitia, the large dark feature seen just below the center of the disk. The giant impact basin Hellas (near the bottom of the disk) is shrouded in bright water ice clouds. Water ice clouds also cover several great volcanos in the Elysium region near the eastern edge of the planet (right). A diffuse water ice haze covers much of the Martian equatorial region as well.

The WFPC2 was used to monitor dust storm activity to support the Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor Orbiter Missions, which are currently en route to Mars. Airborne dust is most easily seen in WFPC2's red and near-infrared images. Hubble's "weather report" from these images in invaluable for Mars Pathfinder, which is scheduled for a July 4 landing. Fortunately, these images show no evidence for large-scale dust storm  activity, which plagued a previous Mars mission in the early 1970s.

The WFPC2 was used to observe Mars in nine different colors spanning the ultraviolet to the near infrared. The specific colors were chosen to clearly discriminate between airborne dust, ice clouds, and prominent Martian surface features. This picture was created by combining images taken in blue (433 nm), green (554 nm), and red (763 nm) colored filters.

The Asteroid Gaspra,
orbiting between Mars and Jupiter

Credit: JPL and NASA

This picture of asteroid 951 Gaspra is a combination of the highest-resolution morphology and color information obtained by the Galileo spacecraft during its approach to the asteroid on October 29, 1991. The Sun is shining from the right; phase angle is 50 degrees. The base image is the best black-and-white view of Gaspra (resolution 54 meters/pixel) on which are superimposed the subtle color variations constructed from violet, green, and near-infrared (1000 nanometers) images taken in an earlier sequence at a resolution about 164 meters/pixel.

The very subtle color variations on Gaspra's surface have been artificially exaggerated here; to first order Gaspra's color is fairly homogeneous over the surface. However, subtle albedo and color variations do occur and are correlated with surface topography in a significant way. In this false-color view, the bluish areas represent regions of slightly higher albedo, which are also regions of slightly stronger spectral absorption near 1000 nanometers, probably due to the mineral olivine. These bluish areas tend to be associated with some of the crisper craters and with ridges. The slightly reddish areas, apparently concentrated in topographic lows, represent regions of somewhat lower albedo and weaker absorption near 1000 nanometers. In general, such patterns can be explained in terms of greater exposure of fresher rock in the brighter bluish areas and the accumulation of some regolith materials in the darker reddish areas.

Gaspra is an irregular body with dimensions about 19 x 12 x 11 kilometers (12 x 7.5 x 7 miles). The portion illuminated in this view is about 18 kilometers (11 miles) from lower left to upper right.

This color picture results from a joint effort by image processing groups at the U. S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and JPL. The Galileo project, whose primary mission is the exploration of the Jupiter system in 1995-97, is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Io Sweeping Across Jupiter

Credit: John Spencer (Lowell Observatory) and NASA

While hunting for volcanic plumes on Io, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the volatile moon sweeping across the giant face of Jupiter. Only a few weeks before these dramatic images were taken, the orbiting telescope snapped a portrait of one of Io's volcanoes spewing sulfur dioxide "snow."

This stunning image of the planetary duo was taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 and shows in crisp detail Io passing above Jupiter's turbulent clouds.

Io is roughly the size of Earth's moon but 2,000 times farther away. Io appears to be skimming Jupiter's cloud tops, but it's actually 310,000 miles (500,000 kilometers) away. Io zips around Jupiter in 1.8 days, whereas the moon circles Earth every 28 days. The conspicuous black spot on Jupiter is Io's shadow and is about the size of the moon itself (2,262 miles or 3,640 kilometers across). This shadow sails across the face of Jupiter at 38,000 mph (17 kilometers per second). The smallest details visible on Io and Jupiter measure 93 miles (150 kilometers) across, or about the size of Connecticut. The bright patches on Io are regions of sulfur dioxide frost. On Jupiter, the white and brown regions distinguish areas of high-altitude haze and clouds; the blue regions depict relatively clear skies at high altitudes.

This image was further sharpened through image reconstruction techniques. The view is so crisp that one would have to stand on Io to see this much detail on Jupiter with the naked eye.

This image was taken July 22, 1997, in two wavelengths: 3400 Angstroms (ultraviolet) and 4100 Angstroms (violet). The colors do not correspond closely to what the human eye would see because ultraviolet light is invisible to the eye.

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

Credit: JPL and NASA

This is a roughly true color image of the Great Red Spot of Jupiter as taken by the Galileo imaging system on June 26, 1996. Because the Galileo imaging system’s wavelength sensitivities go beyond those of the human eye, this is only an approximation of what a human observer would have seen in place of the Galileo spacecraft. To simulate red as our eyes see it, the near-infrared filter (756nm) image was used. To simulate blue as our eyes see it, the violet filter (410nm) image was used. Finally, to simulate green as our eyes see it, a combination of 2/3 violet and 1/3 near-infrared was used. The result is an image that is similar in color to that seen when looking through a telescope at Jupiter with your eye, but allowing detail about 100 times finer to be visible!

The Great Red Spot has been seen since the 17th century. It is thought to be a large storm system and is wider than two Earths.

Saturn in Infrared

Credit: Erich Karkoschka (University of Arizona), and NASA.

In honor of NASA Hubble Space Telescope's eighth anniversary, we have gift wrapped Saturn in vivid colors. Actually, this image is courtesy of the new Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), which has taken its first peek at Saturn. The false-color image - taken Jan. 4, 1998 - shows the planet's reflected infrared light. This view provides detailed information on the clouds and hazes in Saturn's atmosphere.

The blue colors indicate a clear atmosphere down to a main cloud layer. Different shadings of blue indicate variations in the cloud particles, in size or chemical composition. The cloud particles are believed to be ammonia ice crystals. Most of the northern hemisphere that is visible above the rings is relatively clear. The dark region around the south pole at the bottom indicates a big hole in the main cloud layer.

The green and yellow colors indicate a haze above the main cloud layer. The haze is thin where the colors are green but thick where they are yellow. Most of the southern hemisphere (the lower part of Saturn) is quite hazy. These layers are aligned with latitude lines, due to Saturn's east-west winds.

The red and orange colors indicate clouds reaching up high into the atmosphere. Red clouds are even higher than orange clouds. The densest regions of two storms near Saturn's equator appear white. On Earth, the storms with the highest clouds are also found in tropical latitudes. The smaller storm on the left is about as large as the Earth, and larger storms have been recorded on Saturn in 1990 and 1994.

The rings, made up of chunks of ice, are as white as images of ice taken in visible light. However, in the infrared, water absorption causes various colorations. The most obvious is the brown color of the innermost ring. The rings cast their shadow onto Saturn. The bright line seen within this shadow is sunlight shining through the Cassini Division, the separation between the two bright rings. It is best observed on the left side, just above the rings. This view is possible due to a rare geometry during the observation. The next time this is observable from Earth will be in 2006. An accurate investigation of the ring's shadow also shows sunlight shining through the Encke Gap, a thin division very close to the outer edge of the ring system.

Two of Saturn's satellites were recorded, Dione on the lower left and Tethys on the upper right. Tethys is just ending its transit across the disk of Saturn. They appear in different colors, yellow and green, indicating different conditions on their icy surfaces.

Wavelengths: A color image consists of three exposures (or three film layers). For visible true-color images, the wavelengths of these three exposures are 0.4, 0.5, and 0.6 micrometers for blue, green, and red light, respectively. This Saturn image was taken at longer infrared wavelengths of 1.0, 1.8, and 2.1 micrometers, displayed as blue, green, and red. Reflected sunlight is seen at all these wavelengths, since Saturn's own heat glows only at wavelengths above 4 micrometers.

The Slant on Saturn's Rings

Credit: NASA and E. Karkoschka (University of Arizona)

This is a series of images of Saturn, as seen at many different wavelengths, when the planet's rings were at a maximum tilt of 27 degrees toward Earth. Saturn experiences seasonal tilts away from and toward the Sun, much the same way Earth does. This happens over the course of its 29.5-year orbit. This means that approximately every 30 years, Earth observers can catch their best glimpse of Saturn's South Pole and the southern side of the planet's rings. Between March and April 2003, researchers took full advantage to study the gas giant at maximum tilt. They used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to capture detailed images of Saturn's Southern Hemisphere and the southern face of its rings. 

The telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 used 30 filters to snap these images on March 7, 2003. The filters span a range of wavelengths. "The set of 30 selected filters may be the best spectral coverage of Saturn observations ever obtained," says planetary researcher Erich Karkoschka of the University of Arizona. Various wavelengths of light allow researchers to see important characteristics of Saturn's atmosphere. Particles in Saturn's atmosphere reflect different wavelengths of light in discrete ways, causing some bands of gas in the atmosphere to stand out vividly in an image, while other areas will be very dark or dull. One image cannot stand by itself because one feature may have several interpretations. In fact, only by combining and comparing these different images, in a set such as this one, can researchers interpret the data and better understand the planet.

By examining the hazes and clouds present in these images, researchers can learn about the dynamics of Saturn's atmosphere. Scientists gain insight into the structure and gaseous composition of Saturn's clouds via inspection of images such as these taken by the Hubble telescope. Over several wavelength bands, from infrared to ultraviolet, these images reveal the properties and sizes of aerosols in Saturn's gaseous makeup. For example, smaller aerosols are visible only in the ultraviolet image, because they do not scatter or absorb visible or infrared light, which have longer wavelengths. By determining the characteristics of the atmosphere's constituents, researchers can describe the dynamics of cloud formation. At certain visible and infrared wavelengths, light absorption by methane gas blocks all but the uppermost layers of Saturn's atmosphere, which helps researchers discern clouds at different altitudes. In addition, when compared with images of Saturn from seasons past (1991 and 1995), this view of the planet also offers scientists a better comprehension of Saturn's seasonal changes.

Bright Clouds on Uranus

Credit: Erich Karkoschka (University of Arizona) and NASA

A recent Hubble Space Telescope view reveals Uranus surrounded by its four major rings and by 10 of its 17 known satellites. This false-color image was generated by Erich Karkoschka using data taken on August 8, 1998, with Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer.

Hubble recently found about 20 clouds - nearly as many clouds on Uranus as the previous total in the history of modern observations. The orange-colored clouds near the prominent bright band circle the planet at more than 300 mph (500 km/h), according to team member Heidi Hammel (MIT). One of the clouds on the right-hand side is brighter than any other cloud ever seen on Uranus.

The colors in the image indicate altitude. Team member Mark Marley (New Mexico State University) reports that green and blue regions show where the atmosphere is clear and sunlight can penetrate deep into Uranus. In yellow and gray regions the sunlight reflects from a higher haze or cloud layer. Orange and red colors indicate very high clouds, such as cirrus clouds on Earth.

The Hubble image is one of the first images revealing the precession of the brightest ring with respect to a previous image [PRC97-36a]. Precession makes the fainter part of the ring (currently on the upper right-hand side) slide around Uranus once every nine months. The fading is caused by ring particles crowding and hiding each other on one side of their eight-hour orbit around Uranus.

The blue, green and red components of this false-color image correspond to exposures taken at near-infrared wavelengths of 0.9, 1.1, and 1.7 micrometers. Thus, regions on Uranus appearing blue, for example, reflect more sunlight at 0.9 micrometer than at the longer wavelengths. Apparent colors on Uranus are caused by absorption of methane gas in its atmosphere, an effect comparable to absorption in our atmosphere which can make distant clouds appear red.

Changing Clouds on Neptune

Credit: H. Hammel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and NASA

These NASA Hubble Space Telescope views of the blue-green planet Neptune provide three snapshots of changing weather conditions. The images were taken in 1994 on October 10 (upper left), October 18 (upper right), and November 2 (lower center), when Neptune was 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers) from Earth.

Hubble is allowing astronomers to study Neptune's dynamic atmosphere with a level of detail not possible since the 1989 flyby of the Voyager 2 space probe. Building on Voyager's initial discoveries, Hubble is revealing that Neptune has a remarkably dynamic atmosphere that changes over just a few days.

The temperature difference between Neptune's strong internal heat source and its frigid cloud tops (-260 degrees Fahrenheit) might trigger instabilities in the atmosphere that drive these large-scale weather changes. In addition to hydrogen and helium, the main constituents, Neptune's atmosphere is composed of methane and hydrocarbons, like ethane and acetylene. 

The picture was reconstructed from a series of Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 images taken through different colored filters at visible and near-infrared wavelengths. Absorption of red light by methane in Neptune's atmosphere contributes to the planet's distinctive aqua color; the clouds themselves are also somewhat blue. The pink features are high-altitude methane ice crystal clouds. Though the clouds appear white in visible light, they are tinted pink here because they were imaged at near infrared wavelengths.

The farthest of the gas giant planets, Neptune is four times Earth's diameter. Though Neptune was discovered in 1846, very little has been known about it until the advent of space travel and advanced telescopes.

Neptune in Primary Colors

Credit: Lawrence Sromovsky (University of Wisconsin-Madison), NASA

These two NASA Hubble Space Telescope images provide views of weather on opposite hemispheres of Neptune. Taken Aug. 13, 1996, with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, these composite images blend information from different wavelengths to bring out features of Neptune's blustery weather. The predominant blue color of the planet is a result of the absorption of red and infrared light by Neptune's methane atmosphere. Clouds elevated above most of the methane absorption appear white, while the very highest clouds tend to be yellow-red as seen in the bright feature at the top of the right-hand image. Neptune's powerful equatorial jet -- where winds blow at nearly 900 mph -- is centered on the dark blue belt just south of Neptune's equator. Farther south, the green belt indicates a region where the atmosphere absorbs blue light.

The images are part of a series of images made by Hubble during nine orbits spanning one 16.11-hour rotation of Neptune. The team making the observation was directed by Lawrence Sromovsky of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Space Science and Engineering Center.

 Lonely Pluto

Credit: Alan Stern (Southwest Research Institute), Marc Buie (Lowell Observatory), NASA and ESA

The never-before-seen surface of the distant planet Pluto is resolved in these NASA Hubble Space Telescope pictures, taken with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Faint Object Camera (FOC) aboard Hubble.

Discovered in 1930, Pluto has always appeared as nothing more than a dot of light in even the largest earth-based telescopes because Pluto's disk is much smaller than can be resolved from beneath the Earth's turbulent atmosphere. Pluto is 2/3 the size of Earth's Moon but 1,200 times farther away. Viewing surface detail is as difficult as trying to read the printing on a golf ball located thirty-three miles away!

Hubble imaged nearly the entire surface of Pluto, as it rotated through its 6.4-day period, in late June and early July 1994. These images, which were made in blue light, show that Pluto is an unusually complex object, with more large-scale contrast than any planet, except Earth.

Pluto itself probably shows even more contrast and perhaps sharper boundaries between light and dark areas than is shown here, but Hubble's resolution (just like early telescopic views of Mars) tends to blur edges and blend together small features sitting inside larger ones.

The smaller inset picture at the top is an actual image from Hubble. North is up. Each square pixel (picture element) is more than 100 miles across. At this resolution, Hubble discerns roughly 12 major "regions" where the surface is either bright or dark.

The larger image (bottom) is from a global map constructed through computer image processing performed on the Hubble data. The tile pattern is an artifact of the image enhancement technique.

Some of the variations across Pluto's surface may be caused by topographic features such as basins, or fresh impact craters. However, most of the surface features unveiled by Hubble, including the prominent northern polar cap, are likely produced by the complex distribution of frosts that migrate across Pluto's surface with its orbital and seasonal cycles and chemical byproducts deposited out of Pluto's nitrogen-methane atmosphere.

The picture was taken in blue light when Pluto was at a distance of 3 billion miles from Earth.

Pluto and Charon
Not So Lonely After All

Credit: Dr. R. Albrecht, ESA/ESO Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility, NASA

This is the clearest view yet of the distant planet Pluto and its moon, Charon, as revealed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The image was taken by the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera on February 21, 1994 when the planet was 2.6 billion miles (4.4 billion kilometers) from Earth; or nearly 30 times the separation between Earth and the sun.

Hubble's corrected optics show the two objects as clearly separate and sharp disks. This now allows astronomers to measure directly (to within about 1 percent) Pluto's diameter of 1440 miles (2320 kilometers) and Charon's diameter of 790 miles (1270 kilometers).

The Hubble observations show that Charon is bluer than Pluto. This means that both worlds have different surface composition and structure. A bright highlight on Pluto suggests it has a smoothly reflecting surface layer.

A detailed analysis of the Hubble image also suggests there is a bright area parallel to the equator on Pluto. This result is consistent with surface brightness models based on previous ground-based photometric observations. However, subsequent HST observations will be required to confirm whether the feature is real.

Though Pluto was discovered in 1930, Charon wasn't detected until 1978. That is because the moon is so close to Pluto that the two worlds are typically blurred together when viewed through ground-based telescopes. (If our moon were as close to Earth, it would be as big in the night sky as an apple held at arm's length). The new HST image was taken when Charon was near its maximum elongation from Pluto of .9 arc seconds. The two worlds are 12,200 miles apart (19,640 kilometers).

Hubble's ability to distinguish Pluto's disk at a distance of 2.6 billion miles (4.4 billion kilometers) is equivalent to seeing a baseball at a distance of 40 miles (64 kilometers).

Pluto typically is called the double planet because Charon is half the diameter of Pluto (our Moon is one-quarter the diameter of Earth).

Comet Hale-Bopp closest approach to Earth was March 22, 1997 closest approach to the sun (perihelion) was April 1, 1997 Sky & Telescope's Dennis di Cicco obtained this view of Comet Hale-Bopp before the start of morning twilight on March 12th, 1997, at a dark-sky location south of Boston, Massachusetts. He made this 3-minute exposure on Fujicolor Super G800 film with an 8-inch f/1.5 Schmidt camera -- essentially a 300-mm f/1.5 telephoto lens. The field of view measures about 5 degrees wide (about 10 times the diameter of the full Moon). At the time, the comet was brighter than anything else in the eastern predawn sky. The dust tail, which appears pearly white in this view, was easily visible to the unaided eye, even from moderately light-polluted locations. The blue ion tail could be seen with binoculars or, from darker locations, with the unaided eye. Comets orbit the sun in an eccentric orbit which can take them well outside the orbit of Pluto and inside the orbit of Mercury.

The Farthest Planetoid -- Sedna Mystery Deepens

Credit: NASA, ESA and M. Brown (Caltech)

This is the clearest-ever view of the farthest object yet discovered in the solar system. The object is unofficially named "Sedna" (after an Inuit goddess of the sea).

[Lower right]
At a distance of over 8 billion miles, Sedna is so far away it is reduced to one picture element (pixel) in this image, taken in high-resolution mode with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. This image sets an upper limit on Sedna's size of 1,000 miles in diameter. It is surprising that Hubble does not see a suspected moon near the planetoid. Either the moon's not there, or, far less likely, it is being eclipsed by Sedna, or it is transiting Sedna. The gravitational tug of a moon would best explain Sedna's extremely slow rotation of between 20-50 days, as inferred from ground-based photometric observations.

[Lower left]
Hubble took a total of 35 images of Sedna on March 16, 2004. The planetoid appeared to move slightly between exposures, due to the motion of Hubble around Earth and the motion of the Earth around the Sun. Sedna, too, is moving through space, but too slowly for that to be seen in these images. The fact that the object shows this parallax shift between exposures demonstrates that Sedna is a member of the solar system, and hence is far closer to the Earth than the background star (at right) in the same field of view.

[Top]
A plot of Sedna's apparent motion through space from 2003 to 2005 easily demonstrates that it is close enough to be part of the solar system. The looping path isn't real, but is caused by the fact that Earth is orbiting the Sun and so "laps" Sedna, like a faster race car, once every year. This gives the illusion that Sedna is briefly moving backward along its orbit. Called retrograde motion, this projection effect was noted by the ancient Greeks as they plotted the periodic backward motion of nearby Mars.

Credit: NASA, ESA and M. Brown (Caltech)

Hubble Looks at Our Moon

Credit: John Caldwell (York University, Ontario), Alex Storrs (STScI), and NASA

In a change of venue from peering at the distant universe, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken a look at Earth's closest neighbor in space, the Moon. Hubble was aimed at one of the Moon's most dramatic and photogenic targets, the 58 mile-wide (93 km) impact crater Copernicus.

The image was taken while the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) was aimed at a different part of the moon to measure the colors of sunlight reflected off the Moon. Hubble cannot look at the Sun directly and so must use reflected light to make measurements of the Sun's spectrum. Once calibrated by measuring the Sun's spectrum, the STIS can be used to study how the planets both absorb and reflect sunlight.

(upper left)
The Moon is so close to Earth that Hubble would need to take a mosaic of 130 pictures to cover the entire disk. This ground-based picture from Lick Observatory shows the area covered in Hubble's photomosaic with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2..

(center)
Hubble's crisp bird's-eye view clearly shows the ray pattern of bright dust ejected out of the crater over one billion years ago, when an asteroid larger than a mile across slammed into the Moon. Hubble can resolve features as small as 600 feet across in the terraced walls of the crater, and the hummock-like blanket of material blasted out by the meteor impact.

(lower right)
A close-up view of Copernicus' terraced walls. Hubble can resolve features as small as 280 feet across

The Center of Our Solar System
Image Credit: Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

Closer to Home

Untethered spacewalk by the astronauts of the STS-64 mission, 1994
Photo courtesy Dryden Flight Research Center and NASA