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Hubble and New Horizons Views of Uranus

A four-panel image. The top two panels are diagrams of Uranus – spheres with gridlines going longitudinally and latitudinally. On the top left, the view from Hubble, the southern pole of the planet faces 3 o'clock. On the top right, the view from New Horizons, the southern pole faces 10 o'clock. The bottom left panel is Hubble's actual view of Uranus – the planet is a light blue sphere, with a white circle covering the right half of the planet (the southern pole). The bottom right panel is the actual view of Uranus from New Horizons. The planet appears as a tiny whiteish dot.

In this image, two three-dimensional shapes (top) of Uranus are compared to the actual views of the planet from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (bottom left) and NASA's New Horizon's spacecraft (bottom right). These two missions recently simultaneously observed the gas giant, comparing high-resolution images from Hubble to the smaller view from New Horizons. This combined perspective will help researchers learn more about what to expect while imaging planets around other stars with future observatories.

The gas giant planets in our solar system have dynamic and variable atmospheres with changing cloud cover. By knowing the details of what the clouds on Uranus looked like from Hubble, researchers are able to verify what is interpreted from the New Horizons data. 

While it was clear the cloud features were not changing with the planet's rotation, Uranus appeared dimmer in the New Horizons data than expected.

Researchers found this has to do with how the planet reflects light at a different phase than what Hubble can see. This showed that exoplanets may be dimmer than predicted at partial and high phase angles, and that the atmosphere reflects light differently at partial phase.

About the Object

  • Distance
    DistanceThe 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.
    The distance to Uranus from Earth on September 17, 2023 was 19.1 AU (1.8 billion miles or 2.9 billion km)

About the Data

  • Data Description
    Data DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
    Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.

    The HST observations include those from program 17294 (A. Simon)

  • Instrument
    InstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.
    WFC3/UVIS
  • Exposure Dates
    Exposure DatesThe date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.
    September 17, 2023
  • Filters
    FiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.
    F467M, F657N, F845M
  • Object Name
    Object NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
    Uranus
  • Object Description
    Object DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.
    Gas Giant
  • Release Date
    October 9, 2024
  • Science Release
    NASA’s Hubble, New Horizons Team Up for a Simultaneous Look at Uranus
    Read the release
  • Credits
    NASA, ESA, STScI, New Horizons Planetary Science Theme Team, Samantha Hasler (MIT), Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

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A four-panel image. The top two panels are diagrams of Uranus – spheres with gridlines going longitudinally and latitudinally. On the top left, the view from Hubble, the southern pole of the planet faces 3 o'clock. On the top right, the view from New Horizons, the southern pole faces 10 o'clock. The bottom left panel is Hubble's actual view of Uranus – the planet is a light blue sphere, with a white circle covering the right half of the planet (the southern pole). The bottom right panel is the actual view of Uranus from New Horizons. The planet appears as a tiny whiteish dot.
Color Info
Color InfoA brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented.

These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the WFC3 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. Several filters were used to sample medium wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F467M, Green:F657N, Red: F845M

Related Images & Videos

An illustration shows New Horizons spacecraft's view of the outer Solar System. On the black background of space, speckled with stars, the spacecraft is at the right. The spacecraft looks like a large radio dish, with the dish pointing left. Farther left, there are several narrow, concentric ovals showing the orbit of three labeled planets— Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus.

New Horizons Looking Back Towards Uranus (Artist's Concept)

This illustration shows NASA's New Horizons spacecraft's view of our solar system from deep in the Kuiper Belt. New Horizons is currently at an estimated distance of more than 5 billion miles from Earth. The probe was 6.5 billion miles away from Uranus when it recently observed...

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Details

Last Updated
Mar 06, 2025
Contact
Media

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

Science Credit

NASA, ESA, STScI, New Horizons Planetary Science Theme Team, Samantha Hasler (MIT), Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC)

Image Processing Credit

Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

Related Terms

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