PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA17445: Partially Cloudy Skies on Kepler-7b (Artist Concept)
 Mission:  Kepler
Spitzer Space Telescope
 Instrument:  Kepler Telescope 
Spitzer Space Telescope
 Product Size:  3840 x 2160 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  IPAC-Caltech
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA17445.tif (24.89 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA17445.jpg (243 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

Kepler-7b (left), which is 1.5 times the radius of Jupiter (right), is the first exoplanet to have its clouds mapped. This artist's concept shows what those clouds might look like. The cloud map was produced using data from NASA's Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes.

The map shows that clouds cover the western side of the gaseous planet, leaving the east cloud-free. Researchers speculate the clouds are made up of minerals containing silicates.

Kepler-7b is one of the puffiest, or least dense, planets known. While it is 1.5 times the size of Jupiter is has only about half the mass.

NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. JPL managed the Kepler mission's development. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about the Kepler and Spitzer missions, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler and http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer.

More information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program is at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT

Image Addition Date:
2013-09-30