2006-09-25 10:57:25 · 7 answers · asked by youngun21a 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Maybe you just have unrealistic expectations. Hubble can take good pictures of planets, but not as good as space craft in orbit around those planets. So scientists usually use Hubble to take pictures of stars and galaxies and other things too far away to send space craft to and they leave the planet picture taking to those space craft actually orbiting the other planets.
Still, Hubble has taken some great pictures of planets. See the source to look at them.
2006-09-25 11:13:44 · answer #1 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 4⤊ 0⤋
Better in what way? Have you seen the satellite photos of Jupiter and Saturn? They are very good and better than what the hubble can do. The planets are tens of millions of miles away. Our probes can go into orbit around them which is like a few hundred miles. The Hubble simply can't compete with that.
2006-09-25 11:05:26 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
We have wonderful photos of most planets. Pluto (whether it's a planet or not) is challenging because of it's size and distance...it'd be nice to get a flyby photo of it. Hubble took the only photo to ever show surface detail of Pluto but it's blotchy. We can get high detailed images of galaxies and such using hubble because they are huge. There is really a lot more detail to be seen though.
Surface detail on Pluto:
http://www.ess.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST101/images/pluto_surface.jpg
Saturn in Hubble: http://www.cs.plu.edu/courses/csce144/fall04/exampleCode/saturn-hubble-large.jpg
Mercury by a surveyor:
http://www.k26.com/witus/What_s_New/Solar_System/Planets/Mercury/mercury2_mariner10.jpg
Venus:
http://www.faktabanken.nu/solsyst/venus4r.jpg
Venus surface under the clouds by a surveyor.
http://www.netleksikon.dk/upload/0/0e/Venus_kloden.jpg
Jupiter:
http://www.the-planet-jupiter.com/pictures/planet-jupiter-picture-11.jpg
Neptune:
http://astrosurf.org/lombry/Images/neptune.jpg
Clouds on Neptune:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/planetary/neptune/neptune_clouds.jpg
Uranus:
http://www.urania.be/sterrenkunde/images/uranus.jpg
Uranus with rings:
http://www.trinity.edu/jdunn/images/Galaxy/uranus/uranus1.jpg
2006-09-25 15:40:53 · answer #3 · answered by minuteblue 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hi. The best Earth based photos of the planets WERE taken by Hubble.
2006-09-25 11:49:22 · answer #4 · answered by Cirric 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We have amazing pictures of all the planets in our solar system, except Pluto, which technically isnt even a planet anymore, but we do have amazing pictures of galaxies billions of light years away. I guess it just puts in perspective the size of galaxies compared to Pluto even though Pluto is considerably closer.
2006-09-25 13:52:58 · answer #5 · answered by Birds On The Bat 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The Hubble Telescope was specifically designed to view distant objects; in a sense, it's optically "far sighted". It really doesn't have the ability to take high quality photos of relatively nearby objects.
2006-09-25 11:05:40 · answer #6 · answered by stevewbcanada 6 · 0⤊ 2⤋
We have really high fidelity pictures of our planet--just go to google maps if you have any doubt.
2006-09-25 11:30:03 · answer #7 · answered by bruinfan 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋