August 23, 2022, 6:54 AM
August 23, 2022, 6:54 AM
The world’s largest and most powerful space telescope, the James Webb, revealed unprecedented images of Jupiter.
The telescope took pictures of the largest planet in the solar system in July.
The images, which show auroras, giant storms, the moons and rings that surround Jupiter, have details that astronomers call “incredible”.
infrared photos they were artificially colored to highlight features.
This is because infrared light is invisible to the human eye.
“We’ve never seen Jupiter like this before. It’s all pretty incredible,” said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater of the University of California, who played a key role in the project.
“We really didn’t expect it to be that good, to be honest,” she added.
The $10 billion James Webb is an international mission led by the US space agency, NASA, with its partners at the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
NASA indicated that in the independent representation of Jupiter, created from a combination of several images from the telescope, the auroras spread to high altitudes over Jupiter’s north and south poles.
the auroras are light shows in the sky caused by the sun.
Meanwhile, the Great Red Spot, a famous storm so big it could swallow the Earth, appeared white. This is because it reflects a lot of sunlight.
The Webb launched in December 2021 and is currently It is approximately 1.6 million kilometers from the earth.
The telescope can detect light that began traveling to Earth 13 billion years ago, moments after the Big Bang.
Considered the successor to the famous Hubble telescope, the Webb is expected to be a dominant force for space discovery for at least the next 20 years.
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