The new James Webb Space Telescope has targeted the gas giant Jupiter with its high-resolution near-infrared camera. This fascinating shot is the result.
The gas giant Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system – and a place of extremes. No other planet in our neighborhood reaches enormous pressures in its interior, rotates so fast or has such violent storms. Centuries ago, early astronomers admired the Great Red Spot—a cyclone three Earths in diameter. The gas giant's extensive auroras are so energetic that their pulsating noise was even detected on Earth more than 100 years ago - without knowing where it came from at the time.
A whole new view of Jupiter is now presented by the new James Webb Space Telescope. Its near-infrared camera (NIRCam) used three different filters to capture the light reflected from the gas giant. This allows infrared radiation from different wavelength ranges to be evaluated and displayed separately. Because infrared radiation is not visible, the wave ranges are “translated” into visible colors using special software. Citizen scientist Judy Schmidt created this image of Jupiter based on the Webb data.
Extended polar lights can be clearly seen at the north and south poles, the radiation from which is shown here in reddish tones. Below these high aurorae, yellow and green hazy veil clouds can be seen that have condensed out at high altitudes over the polar regions. On the other hand, the parts of the rays reflected by the lower cloud layers appear more bluish. The Great Red Spot is also clearly visible. It appears bright in this infrared image because the dense, high clouds of this gigantic cyclone reflect a particularly large amount of radiation. The image also shows some other, much smaller cyclones as bright spots.
"To be honest, we didn't expect the images to be this good," says astronomer Imke de Pater, who led the observations of Jupiter with the James Webb telescope. "Although we have seen many of these Jupiter features many times before, the infrared wavelengths from the James Webb Telescope give us a new perspective."