James Webb snaps groundbreaking images of Jupiter

 

Image courtesy of NASA

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured two composite images of the planet Jupiter. The images were captured via JWST's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and analyzed with the help of Judy Schmidt, a participant in the US government's "Citizen Science" program that allows the general public to aid agencies in various scientific endeavours.

In these images, various strands of infrared light invisible to the human eye have been mapped to colored filters based upon their wavelength. The longer wavelengths appear in a reddish filter while shorter ones appear with a blue tint.

The first image (shown above) is a standalone shot of Jupiter that reveals the planet's aurora (red) reaching high into the atmosphere above the poles as well as several white spots and streaks on the planet that scientists say are likely to be representative of local stormclouds. In contrast, black dots and streaks are areas of the planet that have less cloud cover than the rest of the Jupiter.

Image courtesy of NASA.

The second image (shown above) is a wide-angle shot of Jupiter that, in addition to the planet's aurora, shows off Jupiter's rings, its moons Amalthea (bright white dot to the left of Jupiter) and Adrastea (small white dot at the pinnacle of inner ring) and several "photobombing" distant galaxies.

"It’s really remarkable that we can see details on Jupiter together with its rings, tiny satellites, and even galaxies in one image,” UC Berkley professor emritus and astronomer Imke de Pater said, having worked on preliminary observations of Jupiter as part of JWST's Early Science Release Program with fellow scientist Thierry Fouchet.

JWST can be tracked via NASA's "Where is Webb" page.