Zoom in / Saturn is the star in this near-infrared image taken on June 25 by the James Webb Space Telescope.
The James Webb Space Telescope spotted Saturn for the first time, completing a family photo of the solar system’s ring planets nearly a year after the first astronomical images were released from the mission.
A near-infrared webcam captured an image of Saturn on June 25. The scientists added orange to the monochrome image to produce the image, which was released on Friday.
The image shows Saturn’s signature icy rings glowing around the gas giant’s disk, which appears much darker in the near infrared due to the absorption of sunlight by methane particles suspended in the atmosphere من الكوكب.
Webb pointed his 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) gold-coated mirror at Saturn as part of a monitoring program to test the telescope’s ability to detect fainter moons. The observations included many deep exposures of Saturn that astronomers are still analyzing to probe the planet’s faint rings and search for undiscovered moons.
There are 146 known moons orbiting Saturn, ranging in size from larger than the planet Mercury to the size of a mathematical yard, more than any other planet in the solar system, according to NASA.
“Any newly discovered moon can help scientists paint a more complete picture of Saturn’s current system, as well as its past,” NASA said in a blog post published with the new image of Saturn.
To the left of the planet from Webb’s view, three of Saturn’s moons: Dione, Enceladus, and Tethys are visible as bright spots. Each is roughly the size of a large US state.
Recent observations of Enceladus using the Webb’s Near Infrared Spectroscopic Imager instrument revealed a flow of water vapor extending more than 10,000 kilometers into space, or 20 times the moon’s diameter. Scientists say Enceladus is one of the most promising places in the solar system to search for signs of life, as it houses an ocean of water under a crust of global ice.
Zoom in / First view from the James Webb Space Telescope (clockwise) of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus.
NASA / ESA / CSA / STSci
NASA’s Cassini orbiter flew by Enceladus several times before its mission ended in 2017. Cassini spotted similar plumes of water erupting through cracks in Enceladus’ ice cap and flew over the jets to sample particles from deep in the moon’s ocean.
The Cassini spacecraft captured views of Saturn at a higher resolution than Webb, but with the Cassini mission complete, Webb is the primary tool scientists will use to continue studying Enceladus and Saturn for at least the next decade.
There are currently no missions on the books to visit Enceladus. NASA’s robotic Dragonfly mission is scheduled to launch to Saturn in 2027, but it will focus on exploring Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.
The first science images of Webb were released nearly a year ago, showing the $10 billion mission’s promise of insights deeper into the universe than ever before. Observations within the solar system are just part of Webb’s science portfolio, along with science topics such as studying the formation of the first galaxies after the Big Bang and finding planets around other stars that could contain the ingredients for life.
Webb’s science teams have previously published stunning views of other ringed planets in the solar system – Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus – as well as their first observations of Mars.
Stationed about a million miles from Earth, Webb is unable to observe the Moon, Mercury, or Venus because they are too bright or too close to the Sun.
