HUBBLE MAKES MOVIE OF NEPTUNE'S ROTATION AND WEATHER

Wed, 23 Oct 1996 15:45:49 -0400
Source: NASA HQ Public Affairs Office
Don Savage
Headquarters, Washington, DC October 23, 1996
(Phone: 202/358-1547)

Tammy Jones
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
(Phone: 301/286-5566)

Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
(Phone: 410/338-4514)

Terry Devitt
University of Wisconsin-Madison
(Phone: 608/262-8282)

NOTE TO EDITORS: N96-71

HUBBLE MAKES MOVIE OF NEPTUNE'S ROTATION AND WEATHER

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has been used to assemble a time-lapse color movie showing a full 16-hour rotation of the distant planet, Neptune. The movie, made from a series of Hubble observations over nine consecutive orbits, allows astronomers to track cloud motion on the planet. The clear images show Neptune's powerful equatorial jet stream, immense storms, and dark spot in Neptune's northern hemisphere, first identified last year by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology team using Hubble.

The movie was made by a team of scientists led by Lawrence Sromovsky of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Space Science and Engineering Center and were presented at the annual meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, in Tuscon AZ. The team combined observations from Hubble and NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, to observe the distant planet in a variety of wavelengths, each providing a different set of information about Neptune's clouds, their structure, and how they circulate. Scientists can make more precise calculations of Neptune's wind speeds and directions, yielding refined information about the planet's dynamic weather system.

In addition to the movie, a still image is available to news media representatives by calling the Headquarters Imaging Branch on 202/358-1900. Photo numbers are:

Color: 96-HC-692 B&W: 96-H-692

Image files in GIF and JPEG format and captions may be accessed on Internet via anonymous ftp from ftp.stsci.edu in /pubinfo.

GIF JPEG PRC96-33 Neptune gif/nept96.gif jpeg/nept96.jpg

Higher resolution digital versions (300 dpi JPEG) of the release photograph are available in /pubinfo/hrtemp:

96-33.jpg (color) and 96-33bw.jpg (black/white).

GIF and JPEG images, captions and press release text are available via the World Wide Web at:

http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/33.html and via links in:
http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/Latest.html or
html http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/Pictures.html.

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