Featured Image Credit: NASA
Topics: News, Technology, Science
Amelia Jones
Cast your eyes skyward: the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured an awe-inspiring new image of ice giant Uranus, with almost all its difficult-to-capture dust rings on display.
The image is a stunning example of just how sensitive the telescope is, as the fainter rings have only previously been captured by the Voyager 2 spacecraft, and the W.M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaii.
Located 1.8 billion miles (nearly 3 billion kilometres) away from our sun, Uranus has 13 known rings, with 11 of them visible in the stunning new Webb image.
The planet is unique in its side tilt, causing its rings to look vertical, unlike Saturn’s horizontal rings.
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Nine rings are classified as the main rings, while the other two were not discovered until the Voyager 2 mission’s flyby in 1986, due to their dusty nature, making them faint and harder to capture in images.
Two other faint outer rings, which we can't see in the Webb images, were discovered in 2007, from images taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Scientists are hopeful that Webb will be able to capture them given time.
Naomi Rowe-Gurney, a postdoctoral research scientist and solar system ambassador for the Webb space telescope at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, told CNN via email: “The ring system of a planet tells us a lot about its origins and formation.
“Uranus is such a strange world with its sideways tilt and lack of internal heat that any clues we can get about its history are very valuable.”
Rowe-Gurney also told the news outlet that she hopes the telescope can also tell us more about Uranus’ unique atmospheric composition to help scientists better understand the giant gas-based planet.
The space observatory’s powerful Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), can detect infrared light, which has not previously been visible to astronomers.
“The JWST gives us the ability to look at both Uranus and Neptune in a completely new way because we have never had a telescope of this size that looks in the infrared,” Rowe-Gurney enthused.
“The infrared can show us new depths and features that are difficult to see from the ground with the atmosphere in the way and invisible to telescopes that look in visible light like Hubble.”
Uranus was identified as a priority to study in 2022, by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
“Additional studies of Uranus are happening now, and more are planned in Webb’s first year of science operations,” NASA’s release said following the announcement.