This series of images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows how the ring system around the distant planet Uranus appears at ever more oblique (shallower) tilts as viewed from Earth – culminating in the rings being seen edge-on in three observing opportunities in 2007. The best of these events appears in the far right image taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on August 14, 2007.
The edge-on rings appear as two spikes above and below the planet. The rings cannot be seen running fully across the face of the planet because the bright glare of the planet has been blocked out in the Hubble photo (a small amount of residual glare appears as a fan- shaped image artifact). A much shorter color exposure of the planet has been photo- composited to show its size and position relative to the ring plane.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and M. Showalter (SETI Institute)| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Uranus |
| Object Description | Planet |
| Distance | The semi-major axis of Uranus's orbit about the sun is 19.18 Astronomical Units (A.U.) or roughly 2.9 billion km. |
| Dimensions | Uranus (without rings) has a diameter of roughly 32,000 miles (51,000 km) at the equator. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The Hubble image was created from HST data from proposals : M. Showalter (SETI Institute) and J. Lissauer (NASA Ames Research Center), and , and : M. Showalter (SETI Institute), R. French (Wellesley College), D. Hamilton (University of Maryland), J. Lissauer (NASA Ames Research Center), and P. Nicholson (Cornell University). |
| Instrument | HST>ACS/HRC and HST>WFPC2 |
| Exposure Dates | 2003-2007 |
| Filters | ACS: Clear, F330W (U), F475W (g), F606W (V), F814W (I) WFPC2: F450W (B), F606W (V), F814W (I) |
| About The Image | |
| Compass Image |  |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
