Dead Star rips the planet apart in “Cosmic Cannibalism” / Wion News
GIACARTA, kilat.com- Space Telescope James Webb captured images of bright Neptune and its fine, dusty rings in details not seen in decades, NASA said Wednesday (9/21/2022).
The last time astronomers had a clear view of the planet furthest from the Sun was when NASA Traveler 2 became the first and only spacecraft to fly over the ice giant for a few hours in 1989.
Webb’s unprecedented infrared imaging capabilities have helped provide new insight into Neptune’s atmosphere, said Mark McCaughrean, senior consultant for science and exploration at the European Space Agency.
The telescope “removes all glare and background” so that “we can begin to understand the composition of the planet’s atmosphere,” McCaughrean, who has worked on the Webb project for more than 20 years, told AFP.
In an earlier image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, Neptune appeared dark blue due to the methane in its atmosphere. However, the near-infrared wavelengths captured by Webb’s main imager, NIRCam, show the planet a greyish-white color, with icy clouds scraping the surface.
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“The rings are more reflective in the infrared,” says McCaughrean, “so they’re easier to see.”
You can also see “interesting brightness” near the top of Neptune, he says NASA in a statement. Because the planet is tilted away from Earth and takes 164 years to orbit the Sun, astronomers have not been able to see its north pole correctly.
Webb also saw seven of Neptune’s 14 known moons.
The zoomed-in image shows what looks like a very bright pointed star, but is actually Triton, Neptune’s strange large moon surrounded by Webb’s famous diffraction peaks.
Triton is covered in ice, is larger than the dwarf planet Pluto, and appears brighter than Neptune. Meanwhile, Neptune “absorbs most of the light that falls on it,” McCaughrean said.
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Since Triton orbits Neptune the wrong way, it is believed that it was an object from the nearby Kuiper belt that was caught in the planet’s orbit. “So it was great to go see it,” McCaughrean told AFP. (nda)
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