“James Webb” captured Jupiter, its rings and three satellites

Last Tuesday, the operators of the James Webb Space Telescope published the first official images, which turned out to be objects of the distant universe – galaxies and nebulae. On a new batch pictures presented much closer objects: Jupiter, its three satellites, as well as its rings.

Image of Jupiter and Europa with a 2.12 µm filter. Image source: nasa.gov

Photos of the largest planet in the solar system were taken during the commissioning of the space telescope – James Webb engineers calibrated and tested the operation of four scientific instruments and other systems of the observatory. The telescope was put into operation earlier this week, and scientific work started on Tuesday.

Pictures with filters 2.12 (left) and 3.23 (right) microns

The pictures were taken with a NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) camera, the filters were changed. In the first image with a 2.12 micron filter, Jupiter itself poses, clearly visible is the Great Red Spot (it is white in infrared photography) – an atmospheric vortex that could swallow the entire Earth – and the Europa satellite, whose shadow lay to the left of the spot. The second was made with a 3.23 micron filter.

Jupiter and Europa in the image with a 3.23 micron filter

In addition to Europa, you can see the rings and two more satellites of Jupiter: Metis and Thebe in the pictures. The scientists themselves were eager to admire the photographs – they confirm that the James Webb can also be used to observe objects located very close by. And if you’re lucky, then see signs of eruptions in the same Europe or Saturnian Enceladus.

Asteroid 6481 Tenzing

NASA also recalled that James Webb can track the movement of objects – the development requirement was the ability to track bodies moving at an angular velocity of up to 30 arc milliseconds per second (msd / s). This function was also checked during system calibration: the object was an asteroid 6481 Tenzing from the belt between Mars and Jupiter. It turned out that the telescope copes with objects whose angular velocity is up to 67 msd / s – more than twice as fast.

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