Neptune in Infrared
Date: 29 Aug 1999

Neptune has never looked so clear in infrared light. Surprisingly, Neptune radiates about twice as much energy as it receives from the sun. A fascinating feature of the above photograph is that it was taken far from distant Neptune, through the Earth's normally blurry atmosphere. The great clarity of this recently released image was made possible by "rubber mirror" adaptive optics technology. Here, mirrors in the Palomar High Angular Resolution Observer (PHARO) instrument connected to the 200-inch Hale Telescope flex to remove the effects of turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere.


Last Update: 16 Jun 2011 (AMB)

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell