Rainbow auroras, giant storms and distant galaxies are on display in the latest images of Jupiter from James Webb Space Telescope gives NASA .
“We really didn’t expect [as fotos] were so good, to be honest,” said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, in a press release.
De Pater and Thierry Fouchet, a professor at the Paris Observatory, conducted observations of the largest planet in our solar system using the telescope – which is the result of an international effort by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
Showing an image that moves from orange and yellow at Jupiter’s poles to blues and purples towards the center, several photographs taken by Webb have joined together to form an overall composite and give Earth a view of the gas giant.
It’s also possible to see faint rings and distant galaxies “photobombing” in the background, according to NASA.
And Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot – a storm big enough to engulf the Earth – appears in white in these portraits.
“The numerous bright white ‘spots’ and ‘stripes’ are likely high-altitude cloud tops from condensed convective storms,” explains Heidi Hammel, Webb’s interdisciplinary scientist for solar system observations and vice president of science at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy.
Scientists collaborated with citizen scientist Judy Schmidt to translate the data and form the telescope’s composite images, which help give a better view of life on Jupiter, NASA adds.
Jupiter is difficult to translate into images because of how fast it spins, points out Schmidt, who lives in Modesto, California.
“This image summarizes the science of our Jupiter system program, which studies the dynamics and chemistry of Jupiter itself, its rings and its satellite system,” summarizes Fouchet.
But Jupiter is not Webb’s only subject. The space telescope is using infrared light to reveal unseen aspects of the universe.
Development of the world’s premier space observatory began in 2004, and after years of delays, the telescope and its massive golden mirror were finally launched on December 25, 2021.
The telescope will observe all phases of cosmic history, including the first glows after the Big Bang that created our universe and the formation of the galaxies, stars and planets that fill it today.
The device is also discovering and observing exoplanetary systems, each consisting of a planet outside our solar system and its host star.
Some of these are potentially habitable, and peeking into their atmosphere could reveal clues in the ongoing search for life beyond Earth.
*Ashley Strickland and Megan Marples of CNN contributed to this story.
Source: CNN Brasil
