NASA’s James Webb captures its first image of Uranus

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has shared its first look at Uranus, revealing invisible glowing rings around the icy giant and its 27 moons.

The $10 billion telescope captured 11 of the planet’s 13 rings in the new image, which are so bright they seem to blend into one illuminated loop.

Astronomers are also amazed at the power of JWST, as it broke the two faintest dusty rings only discovered during the Voyager 2 flyby in 1986.

The main rings are made of blocks of ice several meters wide, while the others consist mainly of icy chunks darkened by rocks.

The rings are thin, narrow, and dark compared to those of other planets, such as Saturn.

Webb also captured many of Uranus’ 27 known moons, most of which are too small and faint to see here, but the six brightest have been identified in the wide-field image that was just a 12-minute exposure.

Uranus is a stunning shade of blue caused by a thick layer of haze in its atmosphere.

Researchers led by the University of Oxford called this the Aerosol-2 layer, which they said would appear whitish at visible wavelengths.

It illuminates the appearance of the seventh planet from the sun, similar to how tracing paper over a photograph makes vivid colors appear more milky.

JWST’s image is made possible by its

Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), which captures light from the edge of the visible through the near-infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, has brought distant galaxies into sharp focus in the new image.

Small, fuzzy structures never seen before, including star clusters — groups of hundreds to millions of stars that share a common origin, all bound by gravity over billions of years.

“When Voyager 2 looked at Uranus, the camera showed an almost featureless blue-green ball in visible wavelengths,” the European Space Agency (ESA) shared in a statement. rack.

“With Webb’s infrared wavelengths and extra sensitivity, we see more detail, which shows how dynamic Uranus’ atmosphere really is.”

Uranus is a stunning shade of blue caused by a thick layer of haze in its atmosphere. The image was only a 12 minute exposure

The pristine image also highlights Uranus’ unique polar cap, which appears when the pole moves directly into the sun in the summer and then disappears in the fall.

JWST pinned it as a native region in the northern region, which scientists said could help them better understand the mysterious mechanism.

‘Webb revealed a surprising aspect of the polar cap: a subtle enhanced brightening in the center of the polar cap,” ESA said.

“Webb’s sensitivity and longer wavelengths may be why we can see this enhanced polar feature of Uranus when it has not been seen with other powerful telescopes such as NASA/ESA and NASA’s Keck Observatory.”

There is also a bright cloud on the edge of the polar cap and a second in the southern region, which are typical of Uranus in infrared wavelengths, and are likely related to storm activity.

Webb also captured many of Uranus’ 27 known moons, most of which are too small and faint to see here, but the six brightest have been identified in the widescreen image

“It’s just the tip of the iceberg of what Webb can do when observing this mysterious planet,” ESA said.

“Additional studies of Uranus are now underway, with more planned in Webb’s first year of science operations.”

NASA scientists recently announced an effort to push space agencies to launch a probe to Uranus and Neptune in the 2030s.

Very little is known about the composition of the two blue planets, as the only spacecraft to visit them was Voyager 2, which flew by in the 1980s.

It makes sense to launch the probes in the 2030s, as they will receive a boost from Jupiter, as it is “perfectly aligned” with Neptune and Uranus.

The rare celestial alignment would allow the spacecraft to orbit around Jupiter to build up speed and shorten the time it takes to reach the outside worlds.