SpaceX and its competitor Blue Origin - which flew founder Jeff Bezos to the edge of space in July - are aiming to build human settlements closer to Earth. Private space companies with bigger budgets haven't shown much interest in exploring the outer planets. 'However, NASA's budget is limited, so even a single probe most likely would not have all the instruments needed to really measure cloud particles in detail.' 'A lot of these questions could be answered by actually sending probes to the giant planets and making measurements inside the atmosphere,' Wong said. It was inching south, where Neptune's biggest storms go to die, but suddenly changed course and moved north again in August 2020. Last year, Hubble data revealed that the Dark Spot, which is wider than the Atlantic Ocean, had abruptly switched directions.

NASA, ESA, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC), Michael H. Hubble took this photo of Neptune on September 7, 2021. Planetary scientist Michael Wong said he loves how dynamic the distant planets are. The latest images, shot by Hubble in September and October, capture those changes in real time. These outer worlds continually morph as tumultuous bands of gases and gargantuan storms rise, fall, change color, and reverse directions over months or years. Hubble's portraits, published by NASA on Thursday, depict visible changes in each planet's atmosphere. Its observations have allowed astronomers to calculate the age and expansion of the universe and to peer at galaxies formed shortly after the Big Bang. It has photographed the births and deaths of stars, spotted new moons circling Pluto, and tracked interstellar objects zipping through our solar system.

Hubble, which launched into Earth's orbit in 1990, is the world's most powerful space telescope. The images capture mysterious changes in the planets' weather and colors - both exciting scientists and sometimes leaving them scratching their heads. Every year, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope spends a few days shooting photos of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and this year's portraits don't disappoint. It's school picture day for our solar system's distant planets. Erich Karkoschka of the University of Arizona, USA used the telescopes Advanced Camera for Surveys on 22 March 2004 to take the visible-light image.

Saturn nasa picture of the day