1 00:00:00,010 --> 00:00:04,190 2 00:00:04,190 --> 00:00:10,250 3 00:00:10,250 --> 00:00:12,240 Now is a very good time. 4 00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:16,420 tonight or any time in April to go out and look out up at 5 00:00:16,420 --> 00:00:20,610 Jupiter, it's going to be very bright in the night sky. 6 00:00:20,610 --> 00:00:24,620 And so easy to see with the naked eye and even better if you have 7 00:00:24,620 --> 00:00:28,810 binoculars or a small telescope, you can see it well and you can see even 8 00:00:28,810 --> 00:00:36,840 some of it's tiny moons if you're in a clear, dark,place. 9 00:00:36,840 --> 00:00:40,860 10 00:00:40,860 --> 00:00:45,060 So we've taken advantage of the fact that Jupiter is relatively close to 11 00:00:45,060 --> 00:00:49,250 snap a new picture of Jupiter with the Hubble Space Telescope. 12 00:00:49,250 --> 00:00:53,300 And with Hubble we can see all this gorgeous detail, the atmospheric 13 00:00:53,300 --> 00:00:57,310 bands, the different colors representing sometimes different 14 00:00:57,310 --> 00:01:01,330 altitudes of the clouds. The great red spot, 15 00:01:01,330 --> 00:01:05,530 which we know is a giant hurricane, we're taking this image and 16 00:01:05,530 --> 00:01:09,550 putting it into context of several other images that we've taken over 17 00:01:09,550 --> 00:01:13,560 the last couple of decades with the Hubble Telescope, and that's giving 18 00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:17,650 us this time picture of how Jupiter is changing 19 00:01:17,650 --> 00:01:21,840 it's atmospheric dynamic's change. We're able 20 00:01:21,840 --> 00:01:25,940 to see things like wave structure in the 21 00:01:25,940 --> 00:01:29,960 atmospheric clouds, we've used Hubble's ultraviolet 22 00:01:29,960 --> 00:01:33,960 capabilities to look also over the years at the aurora 23 00:01:33,960 --> 00:01:38,140 the northern lights, to see how it changes in response to 24 00:01:38,140 --> 00:01:42,150 the magnetic field around Jupiter. So the new image will fit into this 25 00:01:42,150 --> 00:01:46,170 repeated paradigm of looking at 26 00:01:46,170 --> 00:01:50,190 Jupiter, and we'll continue to look at Jupiter and the outer gas giant planets 27 00:01:50,190 --> 00:01:54,220 in our solar system with Hubble in future years as well, to learn how things 28 00:01:54,220 --> 00:01:58,230 change over time on this very dynamic planet. 29 00:01:58,230 --> 00:02:02,410 30 00:02:02,410 --> 00:02:06,420 31 00:02:06,420 --> 00:02:10,440 This "Red Spot" has been observed for well over 32 00:02:10,440 --> 00:02:14,440 a hundred years, but we've noticed over the last couple of decades, especially 33 00:02:14,440 --> 00:02:18,460 looking with Hubble, that it is changing it is 34 00:02:18,460 --> 00:02:22,490 shrinking in size, it's becoming more rounded and less oval 35 00:02:22,490 --> 00:02:26,500 in shape, changes in color. So this hurricane is 36 00:02:26,500 --> 00:02:30,510 changing, perhaps decreasing in some ways 37 00:02:30,510 --> 00:02:34,520 and other little hurricanes are cropping up. We have something we call "Red Spot 38 00:02:34,520 --> 00:02:38,530 Jupiter" I'm sorry, "Red Spot Junior" that we've seen over the last decade 39 00:02:38,530 --> 00:02:42,540 with Hubble and some little white spot, little other storms that 40 00:02:42,540 --> 00:02:46,550 cropping up as well. So Jupiter has a lot of atmospheric 41 00:02:46,550 --> 00:02:50,560 weather dynamics, if you will, going on. We don't know exactly why 42 00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:54,570 these changes take place because Jupiter is such a different planet from 43 00:02:54,570 --> 00:02:58,600 Earth, it's enormous, you could fit a thousand Earths 44 00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:02,610 within Jupiter and it doesn't have a solid surface 45 00:03:02,610 --> 00:03:06,790 it has, this cloudy covering 46 00:03:06,790 --> 00:03:10,810 it's mostly made of gas and liquid, so there's no solid 47 00:03:10,810 --> 00:03:14,990 continents to slow down hurricanes like we have on Earth so we don't- we're not quite sure 48 00:03:14,990 --> 00:03:19,180 why these dynamics happen but we are certainly trying to know more 49 00:03:19,180 --> 00:03:23,190 by doing these observations. We even have an probe 50 00:03:23,190 --> 00:03:27,220 an orbiting satellite at Jupiter called Juno 51 00:03:27,220 --> 00:03:31,230 that's sending more detailed information 52 00:03:31,230 --> 00:03:35,400 studying it's magnetic field, it's gravitational field so that combined with 53 00:03:35,400 --> 00:03:39,420 these full planet images that we get from Hubble, are giving us the information 54 00:03:39,420 --> 00:03:43,600 we need to understand it better. 55 00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:47,640 56 00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:51,830 Well the moons of Jupiter are fascinating. There are well 57 00:03:51,830 --> 00:03:55,840 over 50 of them but the inner-most moons are particularly 58 00:03:55,840 --> 00:03:59,910 interesting, these are the ones that Galileo saw over 400 years ago 59 00:03:59,910 --> 00:04:04,100 but we're interested in particular in Europa this is a cold 60 00:04:04,100 --> 00:04:08,140 ice covered moon, but we believe that under that icy crust 61 00:04:08,140 --> 00:04:12,150 there's a liquid water ocean and of course where there's water we're always 62 00:04:12,150 --> 00:04:16,160 curious to know if there could be habitability for life or 63 00:04:16,160 --> 00:04:20,340 even life itself, but it's hard to study that water under the icy 64 00:04:20,340 --> 00:04:24,350 crust, however recent observations with the Hubble Space Telescope 65 00:04:24,350 --> 00:04:28,530 have shown us potential plumes of water vapor 66 00:04:28,530 --> 00:04:32,540 being ejected off the surface of this moon 67 00:04:32,540 --> 00:04:36,740 perhaps between the cracks in the ice. These water 68 00:04:36,740 --> 00:04:40,780 vapor plumes could be potentially sampled to study the nature 69 00:04:40,780 --> 00:04:44,790 of that water by looking at it from outside the icy crust without having 70 00:04:44,790 --> 00:04:48,790 at least intially to drill down through the ice to try to study that water 71 00:04:48,790 --> 00:04:52,800 so it's very exciting time for us right now studying 72 00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:56,990 Jupiter and it's moon Europa in particular. 73 00:04:56,990 --> 00:05:01,180 74 00:05:01,180 --> 00:05:05,190 The Hubble Space Telescope is about to 75 00:05:05,190 --> 00:05:09,210 mark it's 27th birthday, so we're very happy 76 00:05:09,210 --> 00:05:13,210 about that. What we're really happy about is that Hubble is working 77 00:05:13,210 --> 00:05:17,410 very well, because throughout these decades we've had several 78 00:05:17,410 --> 00:05:21,420 astronaut servicing missions to Hubble that have put in new 79 00:05:21,420 --> 00:05:25,440 and improved cameras and interesting and have replaced batteries and 80 00:05:25,440 --> 00:05:29,620 gyroscopes, so the telescope is in terrific shape. In fact it's more 81 00:05:29,620 --> 00:05:33,630 scientifically powerful now than ever before if you can believe that 82 00:05:33,630 --> 00:05:37,640 so it's in wonderful shape and we think that it will continue 83 00:05:37,640 --> 00:05:41,640 to bring us terrific scientific data well into the 84 00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:45,810 2020s which means it will overlap with the James Webb Space Telescope 85 00:05:45,810 --> 00:05:49,820 which will launch next year. We're very excited about the 86 00:05:49,820 --> 00:05:53,840 Webb Telescope as well because it will be an infrared observatory 87 00:05:53,840 --> 00:05:57,850 it will provide us information that is different from what Hubble 88 00:05:57,850 --> 00:06:01,860 can provide and complements what Hubble provides 89 00:06:01,860 --> 00:06:05,880 so both of these observatories operating at the same time 90 00:06:05,880 --> 00:06:10,060 perhaps for several years, we'll have information from optical 91 00:06:10,060 --> 00:06:14,080 visible wave lengths of light into the ultraviolet that Hubble can see 92 00:06:14,080 --> 00:06:18,090 and into the infrared wavelengths of light that the James Webb 93 00:06:18,090 --> 00:06:22,110 Space Telescope can see, and that gives us a much richer 94 00:06:22,110 --> 00:06:26,120 swath of information, but about planets like Jupiter and others 95 00:06:26,120 --> 00:06:30,310 in our solar system, but also about very distant 96 00:06:30,310 --> 00:06:34,310 galaxies as well, so we're excited about these capabilities 97 00:06:34,310 --> 00:06:38,510 and the other space telescopes and telescopes on the ground that work together 98 00:06:38,510 --> 00:06:42,520 as well to give us this full symphony of information about 99 00:06:42,520 --> 00:06:44,955 the universe we live in.