GALAXIES
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Title: Neptune Caption: A glorious view of Neptune revealing a deep blue atmosphere containing much structure and detail. The image was taken from over 6.5 million km (4 million miles). The picture shows the Great Dark Spot and its companion bright cloud. On the west limb the fast moving cloud feature, named Scooter, is visible. The deep blue atmosphere is caused by the absorption of red light by molecules in the upper atmosphere. Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: NASA/JPL |
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Title: Clouds on Neptune Caption: Vertical relief is clearly visible in this view of Neptune's clouds. The features extend along lines of latitude. The bright sides and shadow sides are clearly visible as a result of illumination from the sun. The resolution of the image is 11 km (6.8 miles) per pixel. The width of the cloud streaks range from 50 to 200 km (31 to 124 miles), and their shadows range from 30 to 50 km (18 to 31 miles). Cloud heights appear to be of the order 50 km (31 miles). Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: NASA/JPL |
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Title: Great Dark Spot Caption: Taken from a distance of 2.8 million km (1.7 million miles) Neptune's Great Dark Spot fills this image. The image shows white clouds overlying the boundary of the dark and light blue regions. The spiral structure of both dark regions and white clouds suggest a storm system rotating counter-clockwise. Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: NASA/JPL |
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Title: Small Dark Spot Caption: A secondary dark cloud system was also observed in Neptune's atmosphere. The banding structure indicates the presence of strong winds. The V-shaped structure near the right edge of the bright area indicates a clockwise rotation of the storm. This is unlike the Great Dark Spot on Neptune and the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: NASA/JPL |
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Title: Storm Clouds Caption: A combination of images from the Hubble Space Telescope and an Infrared Telescope on Mauna Kea reveal the weather on Neptune. The images seem to reveal giant storms and equatorial winds of 900 miles per hour. The mechanism that creates these turbulent conditions is not yet known, since Neptune does not experience the same degree of solar heating that the Earth does. Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: STScI-PRC98-3, Lawrence A. Sromovsky (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and NASA |
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Title: Rings of Neptune Caption: Prior to the Voyager 2 mission Neptune appeared to have tenuous arc, but no complete rings. This view confirmed that Neptune did indeed have a ring system. The outermost ring appears to have three regions that are denser, and brighter, than the rest of the ring. It is highly probable that it was these denser regions that were observed from Earth. Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: NASA/JPL |
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Title: Rings at Closest Approach Caption: This image taken just after closest approach looks back towards Neptune. From this perspective the rings appear to be much brighter than the approach based images. This implies that a large number of microscopic particles are contained within the rings. As well as the two known rings this image revealed a third, much fainter ring inside the radius of the inner ring. The new ring is relatively faint, but is also relatively broad being 2,500 km (1,550 miles) wide. Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: NASA/JPL |
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Title: Full Ring System Caption: A pair of Voyager 2 images shows the full ring system of Neptune. Visible in this image are the faint, diffuse innermost ring, and the two narrow rings whose existence was known prior to the Voyager mission. The middle ring appears to exhibit a faint sheet of material extend towards the outermost ring, being brightest roughly halfway between the two. Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: NASA/JPL |
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Title: Neptune and Triton Caption: Several days after closest approach Voyager 2 looked back at Neptune and captured its crescent along with that of its moon Triton. In this image Neptune no longer appears blue because the scattering of all light, rather than absorption of red light, dominated from this viewing angle. Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: NASA/JPL |
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Title: Nereid Caption: Nereid was discovered in 1949. Until Voyager 2 reached Neptune all that was known about it was its orbital parameters and brightness. This Voyager image, at a resolution of 43 km (26.6 miles) per pixel, reveals details to show the overall size and reflectance. Nereid is about 170 km (105 miles) across and reflects just 12% of the incident light. Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: NASA/JPL |
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Title: Triton Caption: Features as small as 100 km (62 miles) across can be seen in this color image of Triton - Neptune's largest satellite. The overall pinkish hue may be due to reddish materials produced by methane gas and ice on the moon's surface. The dark areas near the top of the image seem to be part of a belt of dark markings observed near the equator. The south pole is in the middle about one sixth of the way up from the bottom of the image. Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: NASA/JPL |
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Title: Color Mosaic of Triton Caption: A high-resolution color mosaic of Triton. Triton is one of only three objects in the Solar System, along with the Earth and Titan, to have a nitrogen rich atmosphere. It also has the coldest surface known in the Solar System at just 38 K (-235° C, -391° F), a temperature so cold that most of Triton's nitrogen has condensed as frost. The pinkish polar deposits appear to contain methane ice, which has reacted with sunlight. The overlying dark streaks are thought to be an icy dust deposited from huge geyser-like plumes, which are known to be active on the moon. Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: NASA/JPL |
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Title: Limb of Triton Caption: A true color image of dawn of Triton was captured from a distance of 210,000 km (128,000 miles). The largest features are roughly 5 km (3 miles) in size. The image shows a geologic boundary between a rough, pitted surface to the right and a smoother surface to the left. There is also a color boundary, which does not match the geological one. The coloring must be due to a thin surface coating over a different underlying terrain. Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: NASA/JPL |
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Title: Impact Crater Caption: This region is in the northern hemisphere of Triton. The large smooth area towards the right-hand side of the image show a single impact crater. It is the only evidence for cratering on the surface of the moon. It is highly possible that flow processes over the surface have removed the evidence for other craters. Copyright:(c) Public Domain Credit: NASA/JPL |
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