Photo: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Ricardo Hueso (UPV/EHU) and Judy Schmidt.
NASA has released stunning new images of Jupiter and its moons captured by the James Webb Telescope. The images were recorded by the telescope's Near-Infrared Camera, which uses three infrared filters to capture light that is not visible to the human.
In one of the images, Jupiter's Great Red Spot appears white and blue, indicating the massive storm is high in the planet's atmosphere.
"The brightness here indicates high altitude – so the Great Red Spot has high-altitude hazes, as does the equatorial region," said Heidi Hammel, Webb interdisciplinary scientist for solar system observations and vice president for science at AURA. "The numerous bright white 'spots' and 'streaks' are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of condensed convective storms."
That same image also captured a faint view of Jupiter's rings and two of its moons.
"This one image sums up the science of our Jupiter system program, which studies the dynamics and chemistry of Jupiter itself, its rings, and its satellite system," Fouchet said.
Scientists plan to scour over the images to learn new information about our solar system's largest planet.
"We hadn't really expected it to be this good, to be honest," said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, professor emerita of the University of California, Berkeley. "It's really remarkable that we can see details on Jupiter together with its rings, tiny satellites, and even galaxies in one image."
Photo: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Judy Schmidt.