NASA ’s Hubble Space Telescope has taken a rather incredibleset of imagesof Saturn and Mars , revealing the smasher of the former and a tempest engulfing the latter .
The images were taken when the two planets were almost at opposition – their closest points to Earth . Saturn , crack on June 6 , was 2.2 billion kilometer ( 1.36 billion miles ) from Earth . Mars , seen on July 18 , was 59.4 million kilometre ( 36.9 million international mile ) aside .
Saturn ’s tilt , at 27 degrees to its compass , means we get different views of the major planet on adecadal or socycle . At the moment we ’ve amaze a jolly great thought of it tilted towards us , as seen by these Hubble image .
“ Saturn has seasonal changes triggered by the satellite ’s 27 - degree axile tilt , ” saidNASA . “ With summer in the northern hemisphere , the aura is now more active . This may be responsible for a string of bright clouds seeable near the northerly polar region that are the remnants of a disintegrating tempest . Small , mid - latitude puffs of clouds are also visible . ”
The view from Hubble is so good that we can actually see Saturn ’s famoushexagonal stormat its magnetic north perch , which has been ever - present since it was first spotted by Voyager 1 on its1981 flybyof the gas colossus .
Mostly , this Hubble horizon of Saturn just shows us how magnificent the major planet look . It ’s bright tintinnabulation and gorgeous clouds are attractively resolved by the telescope . And in a telecasting , we can even see its cloud rotating around the planet .
Hubble ’s view of Mars , meanwhile , is peculiarly like – the depths of the major planet are also confuse by cloud . Normally we should be able to see the Earth’s surface , though , but the planet is actually engulfed in a planetary dust storm right now , which has put NASA ’s Opportunity rover in abit of a pickle .
“ Each Martian year , moderately large detritus storm cover continent - sized areas and last for weeks at a time , ” enounce NASA . “ Global dust storm – go for weeks or months – lean to happen during the spring and summertime in the southern hemisphere , when Mars is closest to the Sun and heating is at a upper limit to bring forth winds . ”
These Hubble observations are useful , as they will let stargazer study the upper atmosphere of Mars , while spacecraft in reach can study how the storm behaves lower down in the atmosphere . There ’s still a lot we do n’t jazz about detritus storms on Mars , although we did of late operate out where the planet ’s dustmostly comes from .
Still , these Hubble ginger snap should wait on as a reasonably good monitor of how great this orbiting telescope is . Even from millions or billions of Admiralty mile away , it can get views like this . Not bad , NASA .
