Our Solar System

These new maps and spinning globes of Jupiter were made from observations performed with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. They are the first products to come from a program to study the solar system’s outer planets – Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and, later, Saturn – each year using Hubble. The observations are designed to capture a broad range of features, including winds, clouds, storms and atmospheric chemistry. These annual studies will help current and future scientists see how these giant worlds change over time. Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the University of California at Berkeley produced two global maps of Jupiter from the observations, which were made using Hubble’s high-performance Wide Field Camera 3.The two maps represent nearly back-to-back rotations of the planet, making it possible to determine the speeds of Jupiter’s winds. Already, the images have revealed a rare wave just north of the planet’s equator and a unique filament-like feature in the core of the Great Red Spot that had not been seen previously.In addition, the new images confirm that the Great Red Spot continues to shrink and become more circular, as it has been doing for years. The long axis of this characteristic storm is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) shorter now than it was in 2014. Recently, the storm had been shrinking at a faster-than-usual rate, but the latest change is consistent with the long-term trend. New imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope is revealing details never before seen on Jupiter. Hubble’s new Jupiter maps were used to create this Ultra HD animation.Watch this video on the NASA Explorer YouTube channel. Spinning globe of Jupiter, made from first new Hubble map Spinning globe of Jupiter, made from second new Hubble map First global map of Jupiter (flat) Second global map of Jupiter (flat) The motions of clouds can be seen in this short sequence that alternates between the first and second maps of Jupiter. The motions of clouds, with close-ups showing the movement of a unique filament, not seen before, in the Great Red Spot. The Great Red Spot is shown at blue (left) and red (right) wavelengths. In Jupiter’s North Equatorial Belt, scientists spotted a rare wave that had been seen there only once before. It is similar to a wave that sometimes occurs in Earth’s atmosphere when cyclones are forming. This false-color close-up of Jupiter shows cyclones (arrows) and the wave (vertical lines). This image is available with and without annotations. For More InformationSee [NASA.gov](http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/hubble-s-planetary-portrait-captures-new-changes-in-jupiter-s-great-red-spot)

Since our first close-up picture of Mars in 1965, spacecraft voyages to the Red Planet have revealed a world strangely familiar, yet different enough to challenge our perceptions of what makes a planet work. Every time we feel close to understanding Mars, new discoveries send us straight back to the drawing board. Over the past several decades, spacecraft have shown us that Mars is rocky, cold, and desolate beneath its hazy, pink sky. We True-color visualization shows Mars. For More InformationSee [http://mars.nasa.gov](http://mars.nasa.gov)

A NASA spacecraft creates the first complete map of Mercury. Scientists stitched together thousands of images, captured by MESSENGER s jagged topography meets the smooth terrain of a lava flow. For More InformationSee [NASA.gov](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/media/Imaged100Percent.html)