Every year, Hubble takes a little time to turn its electronic eyes closer to home.
Uranus, imaged on 25 October, is having springtime in the northern hemisphere. Because it is farther from the Sun, its orbital period is even longer than Saturn's, with a single season on Uranus taking a whopping 21 Earth years to pass.
In Hubble's image, the cloud cover over Uranus' north pole, called the polar hood, shines brightly. Scientists aren't sure why this happens, but believe it could be excitation from the Sun's ultraviolet radiation interacting with something in the planet's atmosphere. Why that might cause brightness could be down to a number of things, such as a change in the opacity of atmospheric methane.
One thing that remains the same over the past few years of Hubble observations is a pronounced boundary at 43 degrees of latitude. Scientists think there could be a jetstream there keeping that sharp demarcation.Finally, Neptune was imaged on 7 September. There, the southern hemisphere is thought to be experiencing spring – but seasons there last over 40 Earth years. It's been autumn and spring on NeptuneThe new images reveal that Neptune's peculiar dark storm is still hanging around.
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