Clouds of high contrast on Uranus

Science

Volumn 280, Issue 5363, 1998, Pages 570-572

  Karkoschka, Erich ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ASTRONOMY; CLOUD; MEASUREMENT; NONHUMAN; PRIORITY JOURNAL; REMOTE SENSING; SPACE FLIGHT; SPECTRAL SENSITIVITY; VIDEORECORDING;

ATMOSPHERE; EXTRATERRESTRIAL ENVIRONMENT; METHANE; URANUS;

EID: 0032562719     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.280.5363.570     Document Type: Article

References (12)

1. B. A. Smith et al., Science 233, 43 (1986).
2. P. K. Seidelman et al., Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) press release PR94-50 (STScI, Baltimore, MD, 1994).
3. H. B. Hammel et al., STScI press release PR97-36 (STScI, Baltimore, MD, 1997).
4. The subsolar point of Uranus moved from 82° to 40° south between 1986 and 1997. beginning to illuminate the northern hemisphere.
5. K. Rages et al., Icarus 89, 359 (1991).
6. K. H. Baines et al., ibid. 114, 328 (1995).
7. E. Karkoschka and M. G. Tomako, ibid. 106, 428 (1993).
8. R. D. Lorenz et al., ibid. 127, 173 (1997).
9. H. B. Hammel, Bull. Am. Astron. Soc. 29, 994 (1997).
10. G. F. Lindal et al., J. Geophys. Res. 92, 14987 (1987).
11. The zonal brightness was determined in two steps. First, the data numbers of pixel pairs oriented symmetrically to the central meridian were replaced by their minimum, with the assumption that only bright discrete features exist and that features are not located symmetrically to the central meridian. Second, data further than 0.2″ from the limb were fitted to a linear function of the cosine of the emission angle.
12. This work was based on observations made with the NASA/European Space Agency HST, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy under NASA contract NAS5-26555. Support was provided by NASA through grant number GO-07429.01-97A from STScI. I thank M. Tomasko for his support and the crew at STScI for their cooperation with special requests for scheduling and implementation. The NICMOS camera team made these observations possible.