Uranus (November 2014)

This is a Hubble view of Uranus taken in 2014, seven years after the northern spring equinox when the Sun was shining directly over the planet’s equator, and shows one of the first images from the OPAL programme. Multiple storms with methane ice-crystal clouds appear at mid-northern latitudes above the planet’s cyan-tinted lower atmosphere. Hubble photographed the ring system edge-on in 2007, but the rings are seen starting to open up seven years later in this view. At this time, the planet had multiple small storms and even some faint cloud bands.

[Image description: Uranus is mainly colored cyan. The planet looks like a flat circle outlined with a pinkish gray limb. Faint, pinkish gray bands and streaks run nearly vertically across Uranus, while splotches of white clouds dot the right half of the planet’s face. The right third of the planet appears mostly white and pinkish gray, as though that part of the atmosphere were thick with clouds.]