Neptune's rings captured by the James Webb Space Telescope - BBC News

Jonathan Amos
BBC Scientific Correspondent

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1 hour ago

image source,NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI

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Images captured by the Webb Space Telescope provide the first clear view of the distant planet in over 30 years

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The James Webb Space Telescope, which recently went into space, is sending out spectacular new images of Neptune.

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The details of Neptune captured by space telescopes using infrared equipment are the first clear glimpses of the most distant planet in the solar system since Voyager 2 passed through Neptune in 1989.

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These image details show planetary rings made of dust.

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Researchers are interested in Neptune’s different cloud structures because they can provide new clues to the structure of Neptune’s atmosphere.

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These details include the planetary rings and dust lanes that surround the massive frozen planet.

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Beyond Neptune are the seven moons of the giant planet, the most important of which is Triton. Neptune has a total of 14 moons.

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It appears as a star in the James Webb telescope image.

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This is because the methane in Neptune’s atmosphere absorbs infrared wavelengths to darken Neptune, while Triton’s icy surface reflects 70 percent of the sunlight, making it extremely bright.

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Leigh Fletcher, a planetary expert at the University of Leicester in the UK, attended the Europlanet Science Congress in Granada, Spain.

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He told the BBC that everyone at the conference was “trying to play it, but it’s amazing to see these halos, we’re evaluating wavelengths we’ve never seen before.”

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“It was great to see everyone,” he said.

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“The longer wavelengths indicate that the dust belt is newer, and this could be a window through which we can understand deeper orbital patterns, the brighter equatorial belt, which resembles the rings of Jupiter and Saturn.”

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“The storm over Neptune is more active than ever and the photo shows all the members of the Neptune family, with his moon and Triton.”

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Neptune is the most distant planet, beyond Uranus and Saturn, but within the asteroid Pluto.

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Neptune’s orbit is approximately 4.5 billion kilometers from the Sun and it takes 164.8 years to rotate around the Sun.

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Like other giant planets in the outer solar system, Neptune has a lot of hydrogen and helium in its atmosphere. But there is still a lot of ice, water, ammonia and methane on the planet.

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Neptune is nearly 50,000 kilometers in diameter, nearly four times the size of the Earth.

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The James Webb Space Telescope is a joint project of space agencies from several countries in the United States, Europe and Canada.

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On December 25, the $ 10 billion Webb telescope was launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana. Considered to be the successor to the famous Hubble Space Telescope.

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The telescope used by the Webb telescope is 6.5 meters in diameter, the largest ever sent into space.

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