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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured two new images of Jupiter. They are taken from the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), which has three specialized filters to expose various details of the planet.
The first multi-frame image of Jupiter shows the auroras at the planet’s poles. They were captured with a filter mapped to redder colors, which also brings out the light reflected from the lower clouds and upper haze.
Another filter, mapped to yellow and green, shows fogs swirling around the north and south poles. The third filter, mapped to blue, shows the light reflected from the deeper main cloud.
The Great Red Spot, the famous storm so powerful it could engulf the Earth, appears white in these images, as do other clouds, because they reflect a lot of sunlight.
To be honest, we did not expect that everything would be so good. It’s really remarkable that we can see details of Jupiter along with its rings, tiny moons and even galaxies in the same image.
Imke de Pater
astronomer, professor at the University of California at Berkeley
The barely visible rings of Jupiter are shown in a wide-angle image — they are a million times dimmer than the planet itself. Also visible in this image are two tiny moons called Amalthea and Adrastea.
This image summarizes the science behind our Jupiter system program, which studies the dynamics and chemistry of the planet, its rings, and the satellite system.
Thierry Foucher
professor at the Paris Observatory
Recall that «James Webb» is the most expensive, largest and most powerful telescope in history, which has been developed for more than 25 years. He went into space at the end of December last year. Its main task is to detect the light of the first stars and galaxies formed after the Big Bang, and to study the formation and development of planetary systems. He flew to his destination, from where he will scan the Universe, back in January, and the first scientific footage was published in July.
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