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Faint Object Camera of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
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First ESA Faint Object Camer
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| title |
First ESA Faint Object Camera Science Images Pluto - the "Double Planet |
| description |
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has obtained the clearest pictures ever of our solar system's most distant and enigmatic object: the planet Pluto. The observations were made with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera. *Image Credit*: NASA and ESA |
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Pluto's Surface
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Pluto's Surface |
| description |
Images of Pluto taken by the NASA Hubble Space Telescope with the ESA Faint Object Camera. These images, taken in late June and early July, 1994 are the first views which allow resolution of features on Pluto's surface. Opposite hemispheres are seen on the left and right. The large lower images are processed versions made from a number of Hubble observations. The smaller images at the top are actual raw images, each pixel is over 150 km across. The variations in brightness may be due to topographic features and/or surface composition, frost layers, and interactions with Pluto's nitrogen-methane atmosphere. Pluto is 2390 km in diameter and north is up. |
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Pluto Surface Map
| title |
Pluto Surface Map |
| description |
Surface map of Pluto constructed from four images taken by the ESA Faint Object Camera of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The images were taken in late June and early July as Pluto rotated through its 6.5 day period. The map shows a very coarse view of Pluto's surface, but reveals light and dark areas which may be indicative of differences in topography and/or surface materials and frosts. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Pluto's Surface from 3 Billi
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Pluto's Surface from 3 Billion Miles |
| description |
Images of Pluto taken by the NASA Hubble Space Telescope with the ESA Faint Object Camera. These images, taken in late June and early July, 1994 are the first views which allow resolution of features on Pluto's surface. Opposite hemispheres are seen on the left and right. The large lower images are processed versions made from a number of Hubble observations. The smaller images at the top are actual raw images, each pixel is over 150 km across. The variations in brightness may be due to topographic features and/or surface composition, frost layers, and interactions with Pluto's nitrogen-methane atmosphere. Pluto is 2390 km in diameter and north is up. (HST, STScI-PR96-09a) *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Map of Pluto's Surface
| title |
Map of Pluto's Surface |
| date |
06.01.1994 |
| description |
Surface map of Pluto constructed from four images taken by the ESA Faint Object Camera of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The images were taken in late June and early July as Pluto rotated through its 6.5 day period. The map shows a very coarse view of Pluto's surface, but reveals light and dark areas which may be indicative of differences in topography and/or surface materials and frosts. Pluto is 7,500 km in circumference. (HST, STScI-PR96-09b) *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Pluto and Charon
| title |
Pluto and Charon |
| date |
02.21.1994 |
| description |
This is the clearest view yet of the distant planet Pluto and its moon, Charon, as revealed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The image was taken by the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera on February 21, 1994 when the planet was 4.4 billion kilometers (2.6 billion miles) from Earth, or nearly 30 times the separation between Earth and the Sun. Hubble's corrected optics show the two objects as clearly separate and sharp disks. This now allows astronomers to measure directly (to within about 1 percent) Pluto's diameter of 1440 miles (2320 kilometers) and Charon's diameter of 790 miles (1270 kilometers). The Hubble observations show that Charon is bluer than Pluto. This means that both worlds have different surface composition and structure. A bright highlight on Pluto suggests it has a smoothly reflecting surface layer. A detailed analysis of the Hubble image also suggests there is a bright area parallel to the equator on Pluto. This result is consistent with surface brightness models based on previous ground-based photometric observations. However, subsequent HST observations will be required to confirm whether the feature is real. Though Pluto was discovered in 1930, Charon wasn't detected until 1978. That is because the moon is so close to Pluto that the two worlds are typically blurred together when viewed through ground-based telescopes. (If our moon were as close to Earth, it would be as big in the night sky as an apple held at arm's length). The new HST image was taken when Charon was near its maximum elongation from Pluto of .9 arc seconds. The two worlds are 12,200 miles apart (19,640 kilometers). Hubble's ability to distinguish Pluto's disk at a distance of 2.6 billion miles (4.4 billion kilometers) is equivalent to seeing a baseball at a distance of 40 miles (64 kilometers). Pluto typically is called the double planet because Charon is half the diameter of Pluto (our Moon is one-quarter the diameter of Earth). *Image Credit*: Dr. R. Albrecht, ESA/ESO Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility, NASA |
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Hubble Follows Rapid Changes
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| Title |
Hubble Follows Rapid Changes in Jupiter's Aurora |
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Map of Pluto's Surface
| Title |
Map of Pluto's Surface |
| Description |
This is the first image-based surface map of the solar system's most remote planet, Pluto. This map was assembled by computer image processing software from four separate images of Pluto's disk taken with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Faint Object Camera (FOC) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble imaged nearly the entire surface, as Pluto rotated on its axis in late June and early July 1994. The map, which covers 85% of the planet's surface, confirms that Pluto has a dark equatorial belt and bright polar caps, as inferred from ground-based light curves obtained during the mutual eclipses that occurred between Pluto and its satellite Charon in the late 1980s. The brightness variations in this map may be due to topographic features such as basins and fresh impact craters. However, most of the surface features unveiled by Hubble are likely produced by the complex distribution of frosts that migrate across Pluto's surface with its orbital and seasonal cycles. Names may later be proposed for some of the larger regions. Image reconstruction techniques smooth out the coarse pixels in the four raw images to reveal major regions where the surface is either bright or dark. The black strip across the bottom corresponds to the region surrounding Pluto's south pole, which was pointed away from Earth when the observations were made, and could not be imaged. Pluto itself probably shows even more contrast and perhaps sharper boundaries between light and dark areas than is shown here, but Hubble's resolution (just like early telescopic views of Mars) tends to blur edges and blend together small features sitting inside larger ones. This image and other images and data received from the Hubble Space Telescope are posted on the World Wide Web on the Space Telescope Science Institute home page at URL http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/ |
| Date |
03.07.1996 |
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Galaxy NGC 1512
| Title |
Galaxy NGC 1512 |
| Description |
A rainbow of colors is captured in the center of a magnificent barred spiral galaxy, as witnessed by the three cameras of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The color-composite image of the galaxy NGC 1512 was created from seven images taken with the JPL-designed and built Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC-2), along with the Faint Object Camera and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer. Hubble's unique vantage point high above the atmosphere allows astronomers to see objects over a broad range of wavelengths from the ultraviolet to the infrared and to detect differences in the regions around newly born stars. The new image is online at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/16 and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc . The image reveals a stunning 2,400 light-year-wide circle of infant star clusters in the center of NGC 1512. Located 30 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Horologium, NGC 1512 is a neighbor of our Milky Way galaxy. With the Hubble data, a team of Israeli and American astronomers performed one of the broadest, most detailed studies ever of such star-forming regions. Results will appear in the June issue of the Astronomical Journal. The team includes Dr. Dan Maoz, Tel-Aviv University, Israel and Columbia University, New York, N.Y., Dr. Aaron J. Barth, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass., Dr. Luis C. Ho, The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Dr. Amiel Sternberg, Tel-Aviv University, Israel, and Dr. Alexei V. Filippenko, University of California, Berkeley. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., for NASA under contract with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is online at http://www.stsci.edu . More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov. |
| Date |
12.01.1999 |
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The Surface of Pluto
| Title |
The Surface of Pluto |
| Description |
The never-before-seen surface of the distant planet Pluto is resolved in these NASA Hubble Space Telescope pictures, taken with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Faint Object Camera (FOC) aboard Hubble. Discovered in 1930, Pluto has always appeared as nothing more than a dot of light in even the largest Earth-based telescopes because Pluto's disk is much smaller than can be resolved from beneath the Earth's turbulent atmosphere. Pluto is 2/3 the size of Earth's Moon but 12,000 times farther away. Viewing surface detail is as difficult as trying to read the printing on a golf ball located thirty-three miles away! Hubble imaged nearly the entire surface of Pluto, as it rotated through its 6.4-day period, in late June and early July 1994. These images, which were made in blue light, show that Pluto is an unusually complex object, with more large-scale contrast than any planet, except Earth. Pluto itself probably shows even more contrast and perhaps sharper boundaries between light and dark areas than is shown here, but Hubble's resolution (just like early telescopic views of Mars) tends to blur edges and blend together small features sitting inside larger ones. The two smaller inset pictures at the top are actual images from Hubble. North is up. Each square pixel (picture element) is more than 100 miles across. At this resolution, Hubble discerns roughly 12 major "regions" where the surface is either bright or dark. The larger images (bottom) are from a global map constructed through computer image processing performed on the Hubble data. The tile pattern is an artifact of the image enhancement technique. Opposite hemispheres of Pluto are seen in these two views. Some of the variations across Pluto's surface may be caused by topographic features such as basins, or fresh impact craters. However, most of the surface features unveiled by Hubble, including the prominent northern polar cap, are likely produced by the complex distribution of frosts that migrate across Pluto's surface with its orbital and seasonal cycles and chemical byproducts deposited out of Pluto's nitrogen-methane atmosphere. The picture was taken in blue light when Pluto was at a distance of 3 billion miles from Earth. This image and other images and data received from the Hubble Space Telescope are posted on the World Wide Web on the Space Telescope Science Institute home page at URL http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/ |
| Date |
03.07.1996 |
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Hubble Portrait of the "Doub
…
| Title |
Hubble Portrait of the "Double Planet" Pluto & Charon |
| Description |
This is the clearest view yet of the distant planet Pluto and its moon, Charon, as revealed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The image was taken by the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera on February 21, 1994 when the planet was 2.6 billion miles (4.4 billion kilometers) from Earth, or nearly 30 times the separation between Earth and the sun. Hubble's corrected optics show the two objects as clearly separate and sharp disks. This now allows astronomers to measure directly (to within about 1 percent) Pluto's diameter of 1440 miles (2320 kilometers) and Charon's diameter of 790 miles (1270 kilometers).The Hubble observations show that Charon is bluer than Pluto. This means that both worlds have different surface composition and structure. A bright highlight on Pluto suggests it has a smoothly reflecting surface layer. A detailed analysis of the Hubble image also suggests there is a bright area parallel to the equator on Pluto. This result is consistent with surface brightness models based on previous ground-based photometric observations. However, subsequent HST observations will be required to confirm whether the feature is real. Though Pluto was discovered in 1930, Charon wasn't detected until 1978. That is because the moon is so close to Pluto that the two worlds are typically blurred together when viewed through ground-based telescopes. (If our moon were as close to Earth, it would be as big in the night sky as an apple held at arm's length). The new HST image was taken when Charon was near its maximum elongation from Pluto of .9 arc seconds. The two worlds are 12,200 miles apart (19,640 kilometers). Hubble's ability to distinguish Pluto's disk at a distance of 2.6 billion miles (4.4 billion kilometers) is equivalent to seeing a baseball at a distance of 40 miles (64 kilometers). Pluto typically is called the double planet because Charon is half the diameter of Pluto (our Moon is one-quarter the diameter of Earth). This image and other images and data received from the Hubble Space Telescope are posted on the World Wide Web on the Space Telescope Science Institute home page at URL http:// oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/ |
| Date |
05.16.1996 |
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Galaxy NGC 1512
PIA04219
Faint Object Camera, Multi-O
…
| Title |
Galaxy NGC 1512 |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
A rainbow of colors is captured in the center of a magnificent barred spiral galaxy, as witnessed by the three cameras of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The color-composite image of the galaxy NGC 1512 was created from seven images taken with the JPL-designed and built Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC-2), along with the Faint Object Camera and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer. Hubble's unique vantage point high above the atmosphere allows astronomers to see objects over a broad range of wavelengths from the ultraviolet to the infrared and to detect differences in the regions around newly born stars. The new image is online at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/16 and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc . The image reveals a stunning 2,400 light-year-wide circle of infant star clusters in the center of NGC 1512. Located 30 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Horologium, NGC 1512 is a neighbor of our Milky Way galaxy. With the Hubble data, a team of Israeli and American astronomers performed one of the broadest, most detailed studies ever of such star-forming regions. Results will appear in the June issue of the Astronomical Journal. The team includes Dr. Dan Maoz, Tel-Aviv University, Israel and Columbia University, New York, N.Y., Dr. Aaron J. Barth, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass., Dr. Luis C. Ho, The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Dr. Amiel Sternberg, Tel-Aviv University, Israel, and Dr. Alexei V. Filippenko, University of California, Berkeley. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., for NASA under contract with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is online at http://www.stsci.edu . More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov. |
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The Surface of Pluto
PIA00825
Sol (our sun)
Faint Object Camera
| Title |
The Surface of Pluto |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
The never-before-seen surface of the distant planet Pluto is resolved in these NASA Hubble Space Telescope pictures, taken with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Faint Object Camera (FOC) aboard Hubble. Discovered in 1930, Pluto has always appeared as nothing more than a dot of light in even the largest Earth-based telescopes because Pluto's disk is much smaller than can be resolved from beneath the Earth's turbulent atmosphere. Pluto is 2/3 the size of Earth's Moon but 12,000 times farther away. Viewing surface detail is as difficult as trying to read the printing on a golf ball located thirty-three miles away! Hubble imaged nearly the entire surface of Pluto, as it rotated through its 6.4-day period, in late June and early July 1994. These images, which were made in blue light, show that Pluto is an unusually complex object, with more large-scale contrast than any planet, except Earth. Pluto itself probably shows even more contrast and perhaps sharper boundaries between light and dark areas than is shown here, but Hubble's resolution (just like early telescopic views of Mars) tends to blur edges and blend together small features sitting inside larger ones. The two smaller inset pictures at the top are actual images from Hubble. North is up. Each square pixel (picture element) is more than 100 miles across. At this resolution, Hubble discerns roughly 12 major "regions" where the surface is either bright or dark. The larger images (bottom) are from a global map constructed through computer image processing performed on the Hubble data. The tile pattern is an artifact of the image enhancement technique. Opposite hemispheres of Pluto are seen in these two views. Some of the variations across Pluto's surface may be caused by topographic features such as basins, or fresh impact craters. However, most of the surface features unveiled by Hubble, including the prominent northern polar cap, are likely produced by the complex distribution of frosts that migrate across Pluto's surface with its orbital and seasonal cycles and chemical byproducts deposited out of Pluto's nitrogen-methane atmosphere. The picture was taken in blue light when Pluto was at a distance of 3 billion miles from Earth. This image and other images and data received from the Hubble Space Telescope are posted on the World Wide Web on the Space Telescope Science Institute home page at URL http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/ |
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Map of Pluto's Surface
PIA00826
Sol (our sun)
Faint Object Camera
| Title |
Map of Pluto's Surface |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This is the first image-based surface map of the solar system's most remote planet, Pluto. This map was assembled by computer image processing software from four separate images of Pluto's disk taken with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Faint Object Camera (FOC) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble imaged nearly the entire surface, as Pluto rotated on its axis in late June and early July 1994. The map, which covers 85% of the planet's surface, confirms that Pluto has a dark equatorial belt and bright polar caps, as inferred from ground-based light curves obtained during the mutual eclipses that occurred between Pluto and its satellite Charon in the late 1980s. The brightness variations in this map may be due to topographic features such as basins and fresh impact craters. However, most of the surface features unveiled by Hubble are likely produced by the complex distribution of frosts that migrate across Pluto's surface with its orbital and seasonal cycles. Names may later be proposed for some of the larger regions. Image reconstruction techniques smooth out the coarse pixels in the four raw images to reveal major regions where the surface is either bright or dark. The black strip across the bottom corresponds to the region surrounding Pluto's south pole, which was pointed away from Earth when the observations were made, and could not be imaged. Pluto itself probably shows even more contrast and perhaps sharper boundaries between light and dark areas than is shown here, but Hubble's resolution (just like early telescopic views of Mars) tends to blur edges and blend together small features sitting inside larger ones. This image and other images and data received from the Hubble Space Telescope are posted on the World Wide Web on the Space Telescope Science Institute home page at URL http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/ |
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Hubble Portrait of the "Doub
…
PIA00827
Sol (our sun)
Faint Object Camera
| Title |
Hubble Portrait of the "Double Planet" Pluto & Charon |
| Original Caption Released with Image |
This is the clearest view yet of the distant planet Pluto and its moon, Charon, as revealed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The image was taken by the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera on February 21, 1994 when the planet was 2.6 billion miles (4.4 billion kilometers) from Earth, or nearly 30 times the separation between Earth and the sun. Hubble's corrected optics show the two objects as clearly separate and sharp disks. This now allows astronomers to measure directly (to within about 1 percent) Pluto's diameter of 1440 miles (2320 kilometers) and Charon's diameter of 790 miles (1270 kilometers). The Hubble observations show that Charon is bluer than Pluto. This means that both worlds have different surface composition and structure. A bright highlight on Pluto suggests it has a smoothly reflecting surface layer. A detailed analysis of the Hubble image also suggests there is a bright area parallel to the equator on Pluto. This result is consistent with surface brightness models based on previous ground-based photometric observations. However, subsequent HST observations will be required to confirm whether the feature is real. Though Pluto was discovered in 1930, Charon wasn't detected until 1978. That is because the moon is so close to Pluto that the two worlds are typically blurred together when viewed through ground-based telescopes. (If our moon were as close to Earth, it would be as big in the night sky as an apple held at arm's length). The new HST image was taken when Charon was near its maximum elongation from Pluto of .9 arc seconds. The two worlds are 12,200 miles apart (19,640 kilometers). Hubble's ability to distinguish Pluto's disk at a distance of 2.6 billion miles (4.4 billion kilometers) is equivalent to seeing a baseball at a distance of 40 miles (64 kilometers). Pluto typically is called the double planet because Charon is half the diameter of Pluto (our Moon is one-quarter the diameter of Earth). This image and other images and data received from the Hubble Space Telescope are posted on the World Wide Web on the Space Telescope Science Institute home page at URL http:// oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/ |
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