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Opticals

Main articles: Radiation astronomy/Opticals and Optical astronomy

A Hubble picture from June 7, 2010, reveals a slightly higher altitude layer of white ammonia ice crystal clouds that appears to obscure the deeper, darker belt clouds of the SEB. Credit: NASA, ESA, M.H. Wong (University of Califoria, Berkeley), H.B. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), A.A. Simon-Miller (Goddard Space Flight Center), and the Jupiter Impact Science Team.{{free media}}

This Hubble picture, taken on 23 July 2009, is the first full-disc, natural-colour image of Jupiter made with Hubble's new camera, the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Credit: NASA, ESA, Michael Wong (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD), H. B. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO) and the Jupiter Impact Team.{{free media}}

"This Hubble picture [on the left], taken on July 23, is the first full-disk natural-color image of Jupiter made with Hubble's new camera, the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). It is the sharpest visible-light picture of Jupiter since the New Horizons spacecraft flew by that planet in 2007. Each pixel in this high-resolution image spans about 74 miles (119 km) in Jupiter's atmosphere. Jupiter was more than 370 million miles (600 million km) from Earth when the images were taken."

"The dark smudge at bottom right is debris from a comet or asteroid that plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere and disintegrated."

"In addition to the fresh impact, the image reveals a spectacular variety of shapes in the swirling atmosphere of Jupiter. The planet is wrapped in bands of yellow, brown, and white clouds. These bands are produced by the atmosphere flowing in different directions at various latitudes. When these opposing flows interact, turbulence appears."

"Such data complement the images taken from other telescopes and spacecraft by providing exquisite details of atmospheric phenomena. For example, the image suggests that dark "barges" – tracked by amateur astronomers on a nightly basis – may differ both in form and color from barge features identified by the Voyager spacecraft. (The Great Red Spot and the smaller Red Oval are both out of view on the other side of the planet.)"

"This color image is a composite of three separate color exposures (red, blue, and green) made by WFC3. Additional processing was done to compensate for asynchronous imaging in the color filters and other effects."

"A Hubble picture [on the right in ultraviolet and visible lighy] from June 7, 2010, reveals a slightly higher altitude layer of white ammonia ice crystal clouds that appears to obscure the deeper, darker belt clouds of the SEB. The team predicts that these clouds should clear out in a few months."

"Hubble also resolved a string of dark spots farther south of the vanished belt. Based on past observations, the Hubble Jupiter team expects to see similar spots appear in the SEB, right before its white clouds clear out in a few months."

"The giant stormy planet Jupiter has gone through a makeover, as seen in the image below, taken nearly 11 months earlier. Several months ago the dark Southern Equatorial Belt (SEB) vanished. The last time this happened was in the early 1970s, when we didn't have powerful enough telescopes to study the change in detail."

"This natural color planet portrait was taken in visible light with Hubble's new Wide Field Camera 3."