Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site mordor.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!ucdavis!lll-crg!mordor!@S1-A.ARPA,@MIT-MC.ARPA:ARG@SU-AI.ARPA From: @S1-A.ARPA,@MIT-MC.ARPA:ARG@SU-AI.ARPA Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Voyager 2 news Message-ID: <3484@mordor.UUCP> Date: Fri, 13-Sep-85 00:49:51 EDT Article-I.D.: mordor.3484 Posted: Fri Sep 13 00:49:51 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 14-Sep-85 08:09:36 EDT Sender: daemon@mordor.UUCP Organization: S-1 Project, LLNL Lines: 41 From: Ron Goldman Uranus Looks Like 'Blue Marble' In First Color Photo By Voyager 2 By LEE SIEGEL AP Science Writer PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Voyager 2's first color photograph of Uranus makes the solar system's seventh planet look like a ''blue marble,'' a NASA spokesman said Thursday. The space probe, due to fly past Uranus next Jan. 24, took the photograph July 15 when it was 153 million miles from the solar system's third largest planet, said Jim Doyle, a spokesman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The lab, which runs NASA's unmanned space program, released the composite photograph Thursday. ''The planet looks like a blue marble, just about that size'' in the photograph, Doyle said. The bluish tint is Uranus's actual color. Methane gas in the planet's atmosphere absorbs red light from incoming sunlight, leaving blue to reflect into space as the dominant visible color, he explained. The color photo was made from three black-and-white, narrow-angle camera photos of Uranus, filtered through blue, green and orange filters, respectively, then superimposed, Doyle said. Images of four of Uranus's five moons - Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon - were superimposed on the color image and their brightness enhanced 10 times, NASA's announcement said. They appear as tiny, barely visible white dots in the photo. ''The smallest of the five satellites, Miranda, is still not visible'' to Voyager 2, Doyle said. ''It's either too far away or behind the planet.'' The probe also was unable to photograph any of Uranus's clouds or its nine known rings, which ''are too narrow and dark to be seen at this time,'' Doyle said. Voyager 2, launched Aug. 20, 1977, will become the first spacecraft to fly past Uranus next year, at a distance of about 66,000 miles. Uranus is one of the solar system's giant, gaseous planets. The others are Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune. Uranus is four times the size of Earth. Jupiter, the solar system's largest plant, is 11 times the size of Earth.