The semi-major axis of Jupiter's orbit about the Sun is 5.2 astronomical units (483 million miles or 778 million km). On November 3, 2009 Jupiter was 447 million miles away from Earth.
The image was created from Hubble data from proposals 12003 and 12045: H. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), A. Simon-Miller (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), J. Clarke (Boston University), I. de Pater (University of California, Berkeley), K. Noll (STScI), G. Orton (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), A. Sanchez-Lavega (University of the Basque Country, Spain), and M. Wong (University of California, Berkley); and proposal 11559: I. de Pater, P. Marcus, X. Asay-Davis, and M. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and C. Go (University of San Carlos).
NASA, ESA, M. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), H.B. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), I. de Pater (University of California, Berkeley), and the Jupiter Impact Team
The image is a composite of separate exposures made by the WFC3 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. Three filters were used to sample narrow wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic image. In this case, the assigned colors are:
NASA, ESA, M. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), H.B. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), I. de Pater (University of California, Berkeley), and the Jupiter Impact Team
