Neptune's New Dark Vortex: Imaging with HST/WFC3

A bright, unusually long-lived outburst of cloud activity on Neptune was observed in 2015 (Hueso et al. 2015, DPS 400.02). This led to speculation about whether the clouds were convective in nature, or bright companions to an unseen dark vortex (similar to the Great Dark Spot studied in detail by Voyager 2: Smith et al. 1989, Science 246, 1422). HST OPAL images at blue wavelengths finally answered this question by discovering a new dark vortex at 45 deg S. We call this feature SDS-2015, for "southern dark spot discovered in 2015" (Wong et al. 2016, CBET 4278). Dark vortices on Neptune are rare; SDS-2015 is only the fifth ever seen. All five were diverse in terms of size and shape, the distribution of bright companion clouds, and horizontal motions (oscillations and drifts). The drift of these vortices is highly sensitive to horizontal and vertical wind shear, making them valuable probes into the structure of Neptune's atmospheric jets. We will present imaging observations of SDS-2015 obtained with the WFC3/UVIS camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, covering the discovery of the vortex in September 2015 and follow-up observations in May 2016. No significant latitudinal drift was seen over this time span. We will compare size estimates, which are complicated by the continual presence of companion clouds, and by the low contrast between the vortex and its surroundings. The 2015 observations included 7 filters spanning 467-845 nm, weighted toward longer wavelengths to study general cloud motions and vertical distributions. The 2016 observations included 7 filters spanning 336-763 nm, weighted toward shorter wavelengths where the dark spot itself can be detected. A companion abstract (Tollefson et al., this meeting) will present results from radiative transfer modeling of the multispectral data. [This conference abstract is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, associated with programs GO-13937 ("OPAL") and GO-14492.]