James Webb sends us a new postcard and, like the others, it is impressive. The Nasa has indeed just published images of Jupiter taken by the space telescope.
“It’s really remarkable to be able to see details of Jupiter with its rings, its small satellites and even galaxies, all in a single image,” said Imke de Pater on Monday. astronomer at UC Berkeley, in a NASA blog post. A $10 billion engineering gem, the James Webb Telescope was launched into space almost eight months ago and is 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
Auroras of Jupiter
At the poles of the most massive planet of our solar system emerge from the fluorescent lights: these are the auroras of Jupiter which, as for our Earth, are made up of particles from the Sun which react to the magnetic field of the star. These images also show the surface of this gas giant with its winds, storms and fogs. A larger view shows Jupiter with its very thin rings and two moons, Amalthea and Adrastea.
These images are taken from observations of a tool by James Webb, NiRcam, which observes the near infrared, a field invisible to the naked eye. The data collected, which will be studied by researchers to better understand Jupiter’s inner workings, has been adapted to derive these illustrations visible to the human eye.