Is Jupiter Burning? See Giant Planet As Never Before In Hubble’s Stunning New Images

This infrared view of Jupiter was created from data captured on 11 January 2017 with the Near-InfraRed Imager (NIRI) instrument at Gemini North in Hawaiʻi, the northern member of the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. It is actually a mosaic of individual frames that were combined to produce a global portrait of the planet. In the image warmer areas appear bright, including four large hot spots that appear in a row just north of the equator. South of the equator, the oval-shaped and cloud-covered Great Red Spot appears dark. nternational Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, M.H. Wong (UC Berkeley) et al. Acknowledgments: M. Zamani

Is Jupiter in flames? The latest images from the Hubble Space Telescope may suggest so, but this incredible image of our giant planet is, in fact, based solely on infrared light.

Stunning new images of Jupiter taken by Hubble and the Gemini North telescope in Hawaiʻi show the planet in three different kinds of light—infrared, visible and ultraviolet.

Together these wavelengths of light reveal details the planet’s famous Great Red Spot, a storm first observed in 1831 that’s twice as big as Earth, and where winds reach 268 mph/432 km/h.

Three images of Jupiter show the gas giant in three different types of light — infrared, visible, and ultraviolet. International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/NASA/ESA, M.H. Wong and I. de Pater (UC Berkeley) et al.

The images also reveal superstorms and cyclones that stretch across the planet.

The visible and ultraviolet views were taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 while the infrared image comes from the Near-InfraRed Imager on Gemini North. All the images were captured simultaneously at 15:41 Universal Time on January 11, 2017.

What is multiwavelength astronomy?

It’s the viewing of planets and other astronomical objects at different wavelengths of light, highlighting features that would otherwise be overlooked.

For example, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot storm dominates the visible and ultraviolet images, but is almost invisible in infrared.

This ultraviolet image of Jupiter was created from data captured on 11 January 2017 using the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope. The Great Red Spot and Red Spot Jr. (also known as Oval BA) absorb ultraviolet radiation from the Sun and therefore appear dark in this view. NASA/ESA/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M.H. Wong and I. de Pater (UC Berkeley) et al. Acknowledgments: M. Zamani

There are plenty of other examples here of why multiwavelength astronomy is so useful:

• the dark region of the Great Red Spot in the infrared image is larger than the corresponding red oval in the visible image. The former shows thick clouds while the visible image shows particles that give the Great Red Spot its color by absorbing blue and ultraviolet light.
• a bright streak in the northern hemisphere—a cyclonic vortex—appears dark brown in visible light yet barely visible in ultraviolet light.
• four large “hot spots” below appear bright in the infrared image yet dark in the other images.

This visible-light image of Jupiter was created from data captured on 11 January 2017 using the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope. Near the top, a long brown feature called a ‘brown barge’ extends 72,000 kilometers (nearly 45,000 miles) in the east-west direction. The Great Red Spot stands out prominently in the lower left, while the smaller feature nicknamed Red Spot Jr. (known to Jovian scientists as Oval BA) appears to its lower right. NASA/ESA/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M.H. Wong and I. de Pater (UC Berkeley) et al. Acknowledgments: M. Zamani

The NASA Juno spacecraft’s close flyby in April of Jupiter’s cloud-tops spied this monster storm in its mid-northern hemisphere, as processed by citizen scientists Kevin M Gill:

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.