Printed from: PhysLink.com; https://www.physlink.com/news/Index.cfm?ID=369 Original publication date: Sunday September 24, 2006. Hubble Captures a Rare Eclipse on Uranus
Though such 'transits' by moons across the disks of their parents are commonplace for some other gas giant planets, such as Jupiter, the satellites of Uranus orbit the planet in such a way that they rarely cast shadows on the planet's surface. Uranus is tilted so that its spin axis lies nearly in its orbital plane. The planet is essentially tipped over on its side. During the course of its orbit around the Sun, first one pole and then the other is alternately illuminated. As a result, Uranus has extreme seasons during its 84-year orbit around the Sun. The moons of Uranus orbit the planet above the equator, so their paths align edge-on to the Sun only every 42 years. This transit has never been observed before because Uranus is just now approaching its 2007 equinox when the Sun will shine directly over the giant planet's equator. The last time a Uranian equinox occurred, when transits could have been observed, was in 1965. However, telescopes of that era did not have the image sharpness required to view satellite transits on Uranus. When Hubble was launched in 1990, the Sun was shining over Uranus's far northern latitudes. Over the past decade Hubble astronomers have seen the Sun's direct illumination creep toward equatorial latitudes and the moons' orbits approach an edge-on configuration. Ariel, named for a mischievous airy spirit in Shakespeare's 'The Tempest,' is only one-third the size of Earth's moon. Ariel is the nearest large satellite to Uranus. As Uranus approaches equinox, there will be additional eclipses by the large moons Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon, and by many smaller moons. News Story Origin and Copyright: Hubblesite : http://hubblesite.org Original news release: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2006/42/ For more physics & astronomy stories like this one, go to: physlink.com |