Under the powerful shooting ability of the Webb Space Telescope, Uranus shows 11 clear planetary rings, just like the second Saturn in the solar system.
Every planet in the solar system has its own quirks, and Uranus is one of the best. It belongs to the ice giant planet, mainly composed of water ice, methane, ammonia around the rocky core, the atmosphere is dominated by storm clouds (but not as cloudy as the atmosphere of the gas giant planet Jupiter), with 27 moons. The most special thing is that the inclination angle between Uranus’s rotation axis and the ecliptic plane is as high as 98 degrees. It is famously “revolving around the sun lying down”. At present, the North Pole of Uranus is facing the sun.
Uranus is located near the edge of the solar system (an average distance of 2.9 billion kilometers from the sun) and cannot be observed with the naked eye, so don’t mention Uranus’s 13 faint ice rings and dust rings can be seen-until the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Uranus at close range in 1986, astronomy experts to confirm their existence.
Now, astronomers rely on the Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to zoom in on the faint rings around Uranus and make them appear in a very spectacular manner. The new image reveals 11 of Uranus’ rings, and 9 are classified as planetary main rings , and 2 are darker dust rings.
Previously, the polar features of Uranus were difficult to observe carefully with powerful telescopes such as the Hubble Telescope and the Keck Observatory. It is roughly known that there is a seasonal polar cap at the pole of Uranus, but astronomers are not entirely sure of the cause, only knowing that it will appear when the sun shines on Uranus . The data now collected by the Webb telescope should help to solve the mystery of why this polar cap appears in direct sunlight in summer and disappears in autumn.
(Source of the first image:NASA）
