The most powerful telescope in the world has shown Jupiter as we have never seen it before.
The James Webb Telescope (JWST) took several images of the largest planet in the solar system in July of this year, and from them they made up a general image.
The pictures show aurorae, giant hurricanes, the rings surrounding Jupiter and its moons, and all in what astronomers have described as unbelievable detail.
"James Webb" observes the universe in the infrared spectrum invisible to the human eye, and the resulting images are then artificially colored using three different filters in colors familiar to our eyes.
The shortest infrared wave is highlighted in blue - thus it shows the hottest regions of the planet. Auroras and high-altitude fogs are shown in red. The temperature difference is clearly visible in the picture.
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Greens and yellows represent thick layers of clouds and hazy areas, while the Great Red Spot - the largest atmospheric vortex in the solar system capable of engulfing the Earth - appears white due to reflected sunlight.
In addition, the general image shows not only Jupiter itself, but also a diffraction burst from the volcanic satellite Io, the system of rings of this planet, as well as its satellites Amalthea and Andrastea. The dots around Jupiter in the image are distant galaxies that were also captured in the image.
We've never seen Jupiter like this. It's just incredible," said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater of the University of California, who played a key role in the project. “We didn’t even expect, to be honest, that it would be so good.”
The $10 billion telescope is an international mission led by the American space agency NASA, jointly with its partners from the European and Canadian space agencies.
James Webb was launched in December 2021, and now the telescope is more than one and a half million kilometers from Earth. It can pick up the light that started moving towards our planet 13 billion years ago, moments after the Big Bang.
Scientists expect the James Webb to be the successor to the famous Hubble telescope and to be the main driving force behind scientific discovery for at least the next 20 years.