NASA said Wednesday that the James Webb Space Telescope shifted its view from the deep universe to our solar system, capturing the luminous image of Neptune and its fine, dusty rings with a level of detail not seen in decades.
The last time astronomers got such a clear view of the planet farthest from the sun was when NASA’s Voyager 2 became the first and only space probe to fly above the ice giant for just a few hours in 1989.
Webb’s unprecedented infrared imaging capabilities have provided a new view of Neptune’s atmosphere, said Mark McMcGren, Senior Science and Exploration Adviser at the European Space Agency.
McCogren, who has worked on the Webb project for more than 20 years, said the telescope removes all glare and background so that “we can begin to extract the composition of the atmosphere” of the planet.
Neptune appears dark blue in earlier images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope due to methane in its atmosphere. However, infrared wavelengths captured by Webb’s main NIRCam imager show the planet as grayish-white with ice clouds scattered across the surface.
In a statement, NASA said the image also shows an “interesting glow” near the top of Neptune. Since the planet tilts away from Earth and takes 164 years to orbit the sun, astronomers still have to take a closer look at its north pole.
Above Neptune is what appears to be a very bright and pointed star, but is in fact Triton, Neptune’s huge and strange moon. Triton, which is larger than the dwarf planet Pluto, appears brighter than Neptune because it is covered in ice, which reflects light. Neptune “absorbs most of the light that falls on it”. Since Triton orbits Neptune backwards, it is believed that it was once an object close to the Kuiper belt, captured in the orbit of the planet. “So it’s great to go take a look,” McCogren said.
As astronomers search the universe for other planets like ours, they have discovered that ice giants like Neptune and Uranus are most common in the Milky Way. “By being able to observe these in great detail, we can provide our observations to other ice giants,” McCurren said.
The Webb, which has been in operation since July, is the most powerful space telescope ever built, and it has already brought back an unprecedented wealth of data. Scientists hope it heralds a new era of discovery.
“The kind of astronomy we see now would have been unimaginable five years ago,” McCurren said. “Of course we knew it would, we built it to do it, it’s exactly the machine we designed. But to suddenly start seeing things at these longer wavelengths that were previously impossible… It’s totally unusual.”
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