The Colorful Lives of the Outer Planets

Atmospheric features on Uranus and Neptune are revealed in images taken with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The observations were taken in August 2003.

The top row reveals Uranus and Neptune in natural colors, showing the planets as they would appear if we could see them through a telescope. The images are made of exposures taken with filters sensitive to red, green, and blue light. In the bottom images, astronomers used different colour filters to detect features we can't see. The photographs demonstrate that, by using certain types of colour filters, astronomers can extract more information about a celestial object than our eyes normally can see.