Clear images of Uranus rings and satellites taken by the Web Telescope | Forbes Japan official website (Forbes Japan)

Image taken in February 2023 with a 12-minute exposure showing the gas giant’s rings, bright parts of the planet’s atmosphere, and (in the thumbnail image below) a number of satellites (approximately 1). Image similar to Neptune was taken years ago when JWST was in testing).

The Voyager 2 spacecraft took the only successful images of Uranus’ rings in 1968 and 2004.Keck ObservatoryOnly. Voyager 2 will only visit UranusClose up of the photoof humanity and the discovery of 10 new satellites.

Uranus orbits the Sun in 84 years, but because it rotates on its side, much of the Earth’s hemisphere is completely hidden from sunlight for up to half a year (the equivalent of 42 Earth years).

Uranus has five moons that could be “marine worlds” where life could exist. In 1986, Voyager 2 detected some evidence of a possible subsurface ocean on the five inner-orbiting moons of Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, and Miranda. Each moon also has a geological-looking surface without ancient craters, indicating that the moon may be geologically active.

The thumbnail below shows Uranus and its six moons, as well as the galaxy in the background, and is annotated.

This wide-field image of the European system, taken with the Webb telescope’s NIRCam camera, shows six of the 27 known moons of Uranus (the others are too small and dim to be seen on short exposures). , many celestial bodies and many galaxies in the background (Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI IMAGE PROCESSING: JOSEPH DEPASQUALE (STSCI))

JWST still has to do on Uranus. Underway”moons of UranusThe (Uranus Moons) project will use the 21-hour JWST to investigate Arial, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon, looking for traces of ammonia, organic molecules, dry ice, water and more.

These images are from JWSTNear Infrared Camera (NIRCam)This was taken with a camera that produced some amazing pictures.

Last month, JWST’s flagship Hubble Space Telescope released new images of Jupiter and Uranus, showing the growing polar caps of Uranus’ thick layers of atmosphere.

（Original forbes.com）