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NASA has cast its most powerful infrared eye on Jupiter in a new set of images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
A new observatory orbiting the sun 1 million miles from Earth confirmed this week that it can see more than 13 billion light-years into the universe when NASA released its first full-color images. They show countless galaxies, stars and dust clouds in the distant universe.
JWST can also resemble nearby and familiar objects. On Thursday, NASA released a series of new JWST images that show Jupiter in stunning detail. On the gas giant side are the moons Europa, Thebes, and Metis. Scientists think Europa has a saltwater ocean, deep beneath its icy crust, that could harbor alien life.
Some of the new images even show Jupiter’s thin rings. The rings are made of dust particles thrown into space when micrometeoroids crash into nearby moons. In the year No one knew they existed until 1979, when the Voyager spacecraft looked back past Jupiter and saw the rings superimposed on the Sun.
Jupiter and its moons are seen through the short wavelength filter (left) and long wavelength filter (right) of the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRcam instrument.
NASA, ESA, CSA, et al. Holler and J. Stansberry (STScI)
Europa’s shadow is visible to the left of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. The storm is white in this image, because the telescope was turned back on how scientists processed the infrared data.
Stephanie Milam, a planetary scientist on NASA’s JWST team, said in a blog post about the images: “We saw everything so clearly and I couldn’t believe how bright they were.” “It’s exciting to think that we have the ability and opportunity to observe these types of things in our own solar system.”
Jupiter and its moons and rings, captured by JWST at short infrared wavelengths (left) and long infrared wavelengths (right).
NASA, ESA, CSA, et al. Holler and J. Stansberry (STScI)
JWST captured the new images with its Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) filter. Images that clearly show the bands of Jupiter’s atmosphere were captured using a filter for short wavelength light. Others, like the image above, show Jupiter as a ball of bright white light, passed through a filter for longer wavelengths.
NASA focused the telescope on a distant star as it passed Jupiter to ensure that the telescope could find and track stars behind bright objects like Jupiter. That resulted in the zip animation of Jupiter and Europa below.
Jupiter and its moon Europa are shown in this animation made from three images taken with the NIRcam instrument’s short wavelength filter.
NASA, ESA, CSA, et al. Holler and J. Stansberry (STScI)
“Combined with deep-field images released the other day, these images of Jupiter reveal the full range of what the Webb can observe, from faint, far-off galaxies to planets the eye can see in our own cosmic backyard,” said Brian Holler, a scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore who helped plan these observations.
Jupiter and some of its moons are visible through the NIRcam 3.23 micron filter.
NASA, ESA, CSA, et al. Holler and J. Stansberry (STScI)
This is just the beginning of JWST casting its gaze over our solar system. NASA’s telescope plans to study all of the outer planets — from Mars onward — along with their many moons. It includes Europe. In the coming years, JWST may be able to analyze light from Europa’s subsurface ocean, its icy crust, and its water bomb blasts in space. This information can tell scientists about the composition of the ocean.
“I think this telescope is one of the coolest things we’ll ever do in the solar system,” Milam said.
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