Two small moons, nebulous rings and glowing poles: NASA has released impressive new images of Jupiter thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
“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”, welcomed Imke de Pater, astronomer, professor emeritus at the university. of Berkeley, in a article from NASA blog. “Honestly, we didn’t expect it to come out so well,” she adds.
At the poles of the most massive planet in our solar system emerge 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. They extend to very high altitudes above the poles.
These images also show the surface of this gas giant with its winds, storms and fogs.
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A larger view shows Jupiter with its rings, very thin and very faint, and two moons, Amalthea and Adrastea. In the background, the little less clear dots are galaxies captured by the JWST.
On this composite image of Jupiter, we can see on the far left the diffraction point of its satellite Io, then two moons – Amalthea and Adrastea – the very fine rings of the gas giant, its northern and southern auroras, as well as the diffraction of its dawn.
These images are taken from the observations of one of the instruments the James Webb, NiRCam, which observes the near infrared through special filters. As infrared is a field invisible to the naked eye, the light has been “translated” into colors that we can see.
In general, the longer wavelengths appear rather red and the shorter ones are shown in blue tones.
high clouds
The huge Jovian Red Spot – so large it could swallow our Earth entirely – appears white, like the cloud layer at the equator, because it reflects lots of sunlight: “Here the brilliance indicates high altitude,” notes Heidi Hammel, an interdisciplinary scientist for observations of the Solar System by James Webb.
The data collected will be studied by the researchers to better understand the inner workings of Jupiterthe fifth planet orbiting our Sun, and the largest.
Stéphanie Jaquet and the ats