NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has shared its first look at Uranus, revealing invisible glowing rings around the ice giant and its 27 moons.
The $10 billion telescope captured 11 of the planet’s 13 rings in the new image, which are so bright they appear to blend into one bright ring, reports Al-Rai daily.
Astronomers were also stunned by the telescope’s power, as it picked up two fainter dusty rings that weren’t discovered until the 1986 Voyager 2 flyby.
The main rings are composed of rock glaciers several feet across, while the other rings are mainly composed of glaciers obscured by rock. The rings are thin, narrow and dark compared to those of other planets, such as Saturn.
James Webb also captured many of the 27 known moons of Uranus, most of which are too small and dim to be seen here, but six brightest moons were identified in the wide view image, which was shown for only 12 minutes.
Uranus is a stunning shade of blue caused by a thick layer of haze in its atmosphere.
The Oxford University-led researchers dubbed this layer “Aerosol-2”, which they said would appear white at visible wavelengths.
The James Webb image was made possible by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), which captures light in the near-infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, and brought distant galaxies into sharp focus in the new image.
The European Space Agency (ESA) shared in a statement: “When Voyager 2 looked at Uranus, its camera showed a nearly featureless blue-green sphere at visible wavelengths. And with the infrared wavelengths and the extra sensitivity of (James Webb), we see more detail, which shows how dynamic the atmosphere of Uranus really is.”
And NASA scientists recently announced an effort to push space agencies to launch probes to Uranus and Neptune in the 2030s.
Very little is known about the formation of the two blue planets, as the only spacecraft to visit them was Voyager 2, which was flying in the 1980s.
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