The latest images show that Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot does not look red
In this NASA image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, Jupiter is shown in a wide-field view, showing the planet with its faint rings, which are a million times fainter than the planet, and two moons tiny ones called Amaltea, on the left. , and Adrastea at the edge of the ring.
The James Webb Space Telescope of the US space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), has captured stunning images of the planet Jupiter that show two tiny moons, faint rings and auroras at the north and south poles.
“We really didn’t expect it to be that good, to be honest,” said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater of the University of California, Berkeley.
“It’s really remarkable that we can see details about Jupiter along with its rings, small moons and even galaxies in one image,” he said.
De Pater led the observations of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, with Thierry Fouchet of the Paris Observatory.
The composite images were taken with the observatory’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and artificially colored because infrared light is not visible to the human eye.
This NASA image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope shows Jupiter in a wide-field view, showing the planet with its faint rings, which are a million times fainter than the planet, and two tiny moons called Amalthea and Adrastea
Auroras over Jupiter’s north and south poles have been mapped in redder colors, while the Great Red Spot, a storm larger than Earth, appears white.
One image shows Jupiter’s faint rings and its moons Amalthea and Adrasthea.
Launched in December 2021 from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket, Webb is orbiting the Sun at a distance of one million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, in a region of space called second point of Lagrange.
This NASA image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope shows Jupiter’s weather patterns, tiny moons, altitude levels, cloud cover and auroras at the north and south poles.
The spacecraft took nearly a month to reach the region, where it remains in a fixed position behind Earth and the Sun to give it a clear view of the cosmos.
The Webb Telescope is an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, involving more than 10,000 people.