Several Faces of the Planet Neptune at Each Epoch: 1996, 1998 and 2002

These individual color composite images used Hubble blue, green and red filters. Each image component was also processed to reduce limb darkening and enhance contrast, and is a blend of several images taken at different longitudes. The images for each year were processed the same as for other years so that relative temporal changes are meaningful. The first four columns display views at 0, 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 rotations, to show the distributions of features. The last column displays the longitudinal average, showing that latitude bands near 30 S, 45 S, and 67 S, have increased dramatically in brightness.

About the data

These data are from HST proposals 6650, 7324 and 9393. The science team includes: L. A. Sromovsky, P. M. Fry, and S. S. Limaye (University of Wisconsin-Madison's Space Science and Engineering Center), and K. Baines (JPL).