[Music]
Hubble has now been in space for almost
30 years and his mission has been a
resounding success
he was never designed to look at objects
in our solar system but that hasn't
stopped it from actually doing so over
the course of its mission and as a
result it has captured some very special
moments we would have otherwise missed
not every planet has its own dedicated
mission plus there is a lot to see
besides just planets in our solar system
I'm Alex McColgan and you're watching
Astro and in this episode of the Hubble
images series will look at some Hubble
snapshots of our solar system and I'll
give you a context and an explanation of
the special moments it's captured
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number 49 asteroids six four seven eight
gold it may surprise you to hear that
this is an asteroid when it clearly
looks like a comet it's even got two
tails like we're used to seeing on a
comet but no this is in fact an asteroid
found in the asteroid belt imaged this
year so what's with the tail well it is
believed that this 3.5 kilometer wide
asteroid has been steadily speeding up
its rotation due to something called the
Yorke effect radiation from the Sun has
a slight pushing effect meaning when it
acts on an irregularly shaped body under
the right conditions it can cause the
body to speed up its rotation asteroid
Galt's rotation has gradually sped up
until it now rotates once every two
hours right on the limit of what an
asteroid can handle loose matter is
being ejected into space by centrifugal
forces which are now overcoming the
gravity of the asteroid eventually this
asteroid will disintegrate altogether as
most asteroids and comets are not solid
rocks but more like rubble piles which
is very apparent in this next
spectacular image number 50 comet
shoemaker-levy 9 and Jupiter Jupiter is
sometimes referred to as the solar
system's vacuum cleaner and for good
reason - Jupiter by itself is so massive
it makes up almost 3/4 of all the mass
in the solar system excluding the Sun as
a result it has a powerful gravitational
effect on nearby objects
this was particularly evident when the
two kilometer wide comet shoemaker-levy
passed too close to the gas giant in
1994 Jupiter's gravity not only pulled
the comet in it also ripped it apart
meaning by the time shoemaker levy
impacted Jupiter it was already in
several different fragments this was the
first direct observation of an
extraterrestrial collision interestingly
shoemaker levy had been captured by
Jupiter around 20 years previously but
up until this point he was orbiting
Jupiter as an active comet again the
first time this had been observed
however this orbit took it too close to
Jupiter's surface where tidal forces
pulled it apart and only a year later
these fragments impacted Jupiter at 60
kilometers a second for two hundred and
ten thousand kilometers per hour the
impacts caused fireballs over 23,000
degrees Celsius which rose 3,000
kilometers above the limb of the planet
the largest impact left a dark spot on
Jupiter over 12,000 kilometers across
about the size of Earth and the impact
was estimated to have released energy
equivalent to 6 million megatons of TNT
or over 600 times the world's entire
nuclear arsenal put together various
impacts while perhaps not as impressive
have been imaged since and give weight
to the theory of Jupiter being a cosmic
vacuum cleaner protecting the inner
solar system planets from devastating
collisions
number 51 the moon now the moon has a
very big apparent diameter in our sky
which means Hubble can't fit the whole
thing in in one go also there are other
missions out there which capture far
better images of the moon like NASA's
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter for
instance so Hubble's time is better
spent looking elsewhere however this
image was taken in 2012 just as Venus
was passing in front of the Sun so why
imaged the moon scientists are using the
moon as a giant mirror to search for
slight variations caused by sunlight
being scattered through Venus's
atmosphere these variations allow
scientists to determine the chemical
composition of the atmosphere now we
already know the composition of Venus's
atmosphere which means this was just the
test to see if the light scattering
experiment produces accurate results you
see Hubble often looks at distant stars
when an exoplanet is transiting in front
of it and it uses this process to
determine the composition of that
exoplanets atmosphere the Sun is too
bright for Hubble to look at directly so
light reflected off the moon provides
the result scientists were looking for
number 52 Mars and Phobos Mars is often
imaged by Hubble giving us a full view
of the entire disk which can't always be
seen by orbiting spacecraft
in these images Hubble can spot dust
storms seasonal variations and other
weather phenomena important information
to have for any Rovers on the surface
and to build up a catalog of information
which can be used to better predict the
weather in the future this time-lapse
shows a planet-wide dust storm obscuring
most of the surface features from view
however you'll also notice Mars is two
moons Phobos and Deimos whizzing around
the planet in the background and they
really are whizzing look how far they
travel in just 42 minutes this
time-lapse shows another time-lapse
shows Phobos Mars is closest and largest
moon move over the course of 22 minutes
Phobos orbits the entire planet in only
seven and a half hours meaning it is the
only moon in the solar system to orbit
quicker than a day on the parent planet
number 53 Saturn and its inner moons
since Cassini ended its mission in 2017
Saturn has been without a dedicated
mission this means the best view we now
have of Saturn is courtesy of the Hubble
Space Telescope Hubble is often
observing Saturn checking for various
phenomena Hubble can monitor the weather
on Saturn giving us a better
understanding of seasonal variations in
the atmosphere
Cassini was only around Saturn for half
a Saturnian year meaning Hubble is now
filling in the remaining data as best as
it can
the most notable events Hubble witnesses
are huge storms which span across
thousands of kilometers on the planet
but because the Saturn system is such a
beautiful place or the data collection
also provides some striking shots here
are a few of my favorites number
fifty-four P 2010 a - this looks like a
pretty standard Comet wouldn't you agree
having a close-up look at the nucleus
though what is this weird filamentary
structure surprisingly this isn't the
shape of the comet's nucleus again this
isn't even a comet what you are looking
at here is an extremely rare event it is
two asteroids colliding this X shape
near the nucleus is in fact streamers
from the impact ruble being flung into
space in four directions slowly being
pulled back in towards the center of
mass by the extremely weak gravity with
particles in the tail here having
escaped the gravity well altogether
Hubble has imaged a lot more from our
solar system perhaps I will do another
video capturing some more of what it's
seen what's amazing about Hubble is that
even though some places don't have a
dedicated mission at this point in time
it doesn't mean we are completely cut
off from observing these places we can
check out storms happening on planets
millions of kilometres away even
witnessing events like a comet breaking
apart and colliding with a planet or
asteroids colliding with each other and
don't worry even though this mission is
approaching 30 years old it's not going
anywhere anytime soon latest estimates
suggest that Hubble will be with us
until at least the 2030s
one to get the deeper understanding of
the solar system and the universe around
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all the best and see you next time