New James Webb images of Jupiter are ‘stunners’ showing the planet’s auroras at its poles

NASA has shared two new images snapped by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that capture the stunning auroras glowing around Jupiter’s north and south poles that are caused by fluctuations in the planet’s magnetic field.

While Jupiter rotates, it drags its magnetic field that is bombarded by particles of solar wind – this is a similar process to how solar winds create the marvelous auroras on Earth.

Along with the glowing poles, the images show incredible detail of the turbulent atmosphere, rings around the planet and some of Jupiter’s 79 moons can be seen glowing around the giant planet.

Astronomers working with JWST are just as surprised to see the stunning details in the images, with astronomer Imke de Pater saying he and the team did not expect the results to be this good.

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‘It’s really remarkable that we can see details on Jupiter together with its rings, tiny satellites, and even galaxies in one image,’ de Pater said, who is also a professor emerita of the University of California, Berkeley.

The images were taken with the telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), which is capable of detecting light from the earliest stars and galaxies. 

JWST uses a broad range of infrared light to ‘see’ back in time, which is done by analyzing the time it takes for light to travel through space.

And it used three specialized infrared filters to reveal Jupiter’s stunning details.

Infrared light is invisible to the human eye, but the light was mapped onto the visible spectrum, a range of wavelength we can see.

Rings that encircle the massive planet can be seen in the images, along with two two tiny moons called Amalthea and Adrastea. The fuzzy spots in the lower background are likely galaxies ‘photobombing’ this Jovian view

One image, which shows Jupiter alone, is a composite of several images and shows the auroras blowing in bright orange, yellow and green above both the northern and southern poles of Jupiter.

The Great Red Spot, a famous storm so big it could swallow Earth, appears white in these views, as do other clouds, because they are reflecting a lot of sunlight.

Heidi Hammel, Webb interdisciplinary scientist for solar system observations and vice president for science at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, said in a statement: ‘ The brightness here indicates high altitude – so the Great Red Spot has high-altitude hazes, as does the equatorial region.

‘The numerous bright white ‘spots’ and ‘streaks’ are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of condensed convective storms.’ By contrast, dark ribbons north of the equatorial region have little cloud cover.’

Rings that encircle the massive planet can be seen in the images, along with two  two tiny moons called Amalthea and Adrastea. The fuzzy spots in the lower background are likely galaxies ‘photobombing’ this Jovian view.

JWST released other images of Jupiter in July, which show the gas giant glowing oranges and reds, while also detailing its rings and three moons: Europa, Thebe and Metis

Shortly after these images were released, astronomers had announced the telescope may have capture its first supernova, which is ‘last hurrah’ that occurs when the star runs out of fuel. This causes the pressure to drop, in which the cosmic object expands to at least five times the mass of our sun and then detonates, releasing tons of debris and particles

‘This one image sums up the science of our Jupiter system program, which studies the dynamics and chemistry of Jupiter itself, its rings, and its satellite system,’ Thierry Fouchet, a professor at the Paris Observatory, as part of an international collaboration for Webb’s Early Release Science program, said. 

Researchers have already begun analyzing Webb data to get new science results about our solar system’s largest planet.

JWST released other images of Jupiter in July, which show the gas giant glowing oranges and reds, while also detailing its rings and three moons: Europa, Thebe and Metis.

Shortly after these images were released, astronomers had announced the telescope may have capture its first supernova, which is ‘last hurrah’ that occurs when the star runs out of fuel. 

This causes the pressure to drop, in which the cosmic object expands to at least five times the mass of our sun – which is the size of about 333,000 Earths – and then detonates, releasing tons of debris and particles.

The image showcases a bright light three billion light years from Earth that was not present in pictures of the galaxy snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2011.