Jupiter Eyeballed

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took this true-color view of Jupiter on February 17, 2007, using the planetary camera detector. Jupiter's trademark belts and zones of high- and low-pressure regions appear in crisp detail. Circular convection cells can be seen at high northern and southern latitudes.

The animated gif, below, is made up of a series of stills of Jupiter and gives the sense of the swirling thermodynamic atmosphere of this largest of planets. One of the four gas giants in our solar system.

I was prompted to dig out these Hubble images of Jupiter in order to compare them with a drawing of Jupiter from the 1870's that I happened upon in DoraBalla's blog archive. You can recognize Jupiter's gassy swirling bands. It must have taken a tremendous amount of time to do this observational drawing....looking through the telescope and capturing the movement of the gas bands. This drawing of 'Jupiter' and the next drawing of 'A Group of Sun Spots and Veiled Spots' are from The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings Atlas 1870-80.

I try to imagine doing an observational drawing of sun spots and I see the sun burning a hole right through my eyeball, tunnelling directly into my blind spot. A blinding needle dipped in a blood pool of light.