James Webb Telescope reveals ‘incredible’ Views Of Jupiter
The James Webb Space Telescope took these stunning pictures of the solar system’s biggest planet in July.
The images show auroras, giant storms, moons and rings surrounding Jupiter in detail that astronomers have described as “incredible”.
The infrared images were artificially coloured to make the features stand out.
This is because infrared light is invisible to the human eye.
“We’ve never seen Jupiter like this. It’s all quite incredible,” said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, of the University of California, who played a key role in the project.
“We hadn’t really expected it to be this good, to be honest,” she added.
The $10bn (£8.5bn) JWST is an international mission led by the US space agency Nasa with its partners from the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
Nasa said that in the stand-alone view of Jupiter, created from a composite of several images from the telescope, auroras extended to high altitudes above both the northern and southern poles of Jupiter.
Auroras are light shows in the skies above the planet caused by interactions with particles streaming away from the Sun.
Meanwhile, the Great Red Spot, a famous storm so big it could swallow Earth, appeared white. This was because it reflected a lot of sunlight.
The JWST was launched in December 2021, and is currently positioned about one million miles (1.6 million km) from Earth, at the L2 Earth-Sun Lagrange Point.
It can detect light which began travelling towards Earth 13 billion years ago, shortly after the Big Bang.
Viewed as the successor to the famous Hubble telescope, the JWST is expected to be a dominant force for discovery in the next 20 years.
See more here: bbc.co.uk
Header image: NASA/ESA/CSA/Jupiter ERS Team/Judy Schmidt
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
First, for your information The rotational period of this most massive (about 320 times more massive than the earth) gaseous (hydrogen and helium) planet Jupiter is nearly 10 hours and those of the other gaseous planets are Saturn (10+hr), Uranus (24hr), Neptune (24hr). The density of Jupiter is about I.33 times the density of liquid water while the density of Saturn is 0.69 times that of water, of Uranus is 1.3 times, of Neptune is 1.7 times and the of the Earth is 5.5 times.
Without this comparison of these fundamental values of rotational periods and densities one can never begin to understand the implications of this new information given to us by the images SEEN and sent to Earth by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) multiple billion dollar project. For the first thing you should know that the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) only used the Visible Solar Radiation (VSR) to study what could be observed by it and that the JWST only detects the invisible (to our eyes) infrared radiation.
We read: “The infrared images were artificially coloured to make the features stand out.” But we are not clearly told what these “features” actually are; we are not told that these features are the variable temperatures of Jupiter’s surface. You might ask—How can a gas have a surface?—and that is a very good question. Which is why I am writing this comment
We read: “It can detect light which began traveling towards Earth 13 billion years ago, shortly after the Big Bang.” But we are not told that the ‘infrared images’ that are seen in the ‘header image’ have not been traveling toward the Earth for 13 billion years. Another reason I am writing this comment.
I stop here because I want to be sure there is at least one reader who is interested in learning about why what we have not been told has any significant importance. Because first such a reader must have an interest to read this comment and then have an interest in reading any future comments..
Have a good day, Jerry
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Howdy
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“The infrared images were artificially coloured to make the features stand out.”
So still no closer to the truth after all the hype, time and money then. May as well have just taken any image of Neptune and doctored that for what use this is. A bit like monochrome TV before colour came out in that the better image is still missing, so you display the test card and stick cellophane to the screen like stained glass to imagine reality.
What a waste.
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Robert Beatty
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The Juno probe (launched in 2011) revealed more to me than this Webb Telescope image. See
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/260514-juno-probe-reveals-jupiters-great-red-spot-extends-200-miles-deep
The Juno image shows the depth of the great spot is 200 miles deep. This compares with earth’s atmospheric depth of 60 miles. This information tells much about the internal structure of Jupiter, and how the heat cycle circulates.
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Jerry Krause
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HI Robert,
The author of your reference seems not to know that the red spot rotates with a period of a little less than 10 hours.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
This is another PSI article which seems to have not received enough attention (my opinion). This even though I have pointed to the observation that its period of rotation is a little less than 10 hours.
Which has to make Jupiter a super, super centrifuge which moves its densest matter toward its “surface” and toward its “equator”. Which densest matter is likely a solid. Leaving Jupiter’s “core” to be condensed helium atoms and hydrogen molecules with a density which does not vary as its distance from the planet’s center of mass. And leaving its “surface”, whose temperature varies as its latitude varies, a solid composed of “mineral” dust with an atmosphere, with variable density, of helium atoms and hydrogen molecules above the “surface”.
I hope, what I only imagine, generates some more comments because this is the first time we humans have been able to view the entire planet by its emission of infrared radiation because of its variable surface temperatures.
Have a good day, Jerry
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