NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed a new image of Saturn and the rings that orbit it as they are captured in intense luminosity never before seen using an infrared camera.
In the captured image, the planet appears extremely dark due to the almost complete absorption of sunlight by methane gas. The ice rings, however, remain bright, creating the “unusual appearance” of the planet in this photograph, according to NASA.
“Large, dark, diffuse features in the northern hemisphere do not follow the planet’s lines of latitude, so this image does not have the familiar streaky appearance typically seen in Saturn’s deeper atmospheric layers,” the agency explains. space.
Details of the planet’s ring system are clearly visible, as are some moons in its orbit (Dione, Enceladus and Tethys), while Saturn appears extremely dark, creating a strong contrast between the elements.
“Saturn’s rings are made up of a series of rocky and icy bits: the particles range in size from as small as a grain of sand to some as big as some mountains on Earth,” he adds.
These are the first infrared observations of the ringed planet from the James Webb telescope, reveals NASA, which observes the universe with longer wavelengths of light than other space telescopes.
The image was taken with the telescope’s near-infrared camera, known as NIRCam, as part of Webb’s Guaranteed Time Observation 1247 program, which includes several deep exposures of Saturn. The program tests the telescope’s ability to detect faint moons around the planet and its rings, in an attempt to help scientists get a more complete picture of Saturn’s current and past system.
Source: TSF
