NASA releases image of Uranus with 11 of its 13 rings

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a stunning new image of ice giant Uranus, with nearly all of its dust rings on display.

The image is representative of the telescope’s significant sensitivity, NASA said, as the fainter rings have only been captured previously by the Voyager 2 spacecraft and the WM Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii.

Uranus has 13 known rings, with 11 of them visible in the new Webb image. Nine rings are classified as major rings, while the other two are more difficult to capture due to their dusty composition and were not discovered until the Voyager 2 mission flyby in 1986. Two other faint outer rings, not shown in this last image, were discovered in 2007 from images taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, and scientists hope that Webb will capture them in the future.

“A planet’s ring system tells us a lot about its origins and formation,” said Dr. Naomi Rowe-Gurney, postdoctoral research scientist and solar system ambassador for the Webb Space Telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, via email.

“Uranus is such a strange world with its sideways tilt and lack of internal heat that any clues we can get about its history are very valuable.”

Scientists anticipate that future Webb images will be able to capture all 13 rings. Rowe-Gurney also hopes the telescope will discover more about Uranus’ atmospheric composition, helping scientists better understand this unusual gas giant.

“James Webb gives us the ability to look at both Uranus and Neptune in a completely new way, because we’ve never had a telescope this size that looks in the infrared,” said Rowe-Gurney. “Infrared can show us new depths and features that are difficult to see from the ground with the atmosphere in the way and invisible to telescopes that look in visible light like Hubble.”

More about Uranus

Located 1.8 billion miles (nearly 3 billion kilometers) away from our sun, Uranus takes 84 years to complete a full rotation. The planet is unique in its lateral tilt, causing its rings to display vertically, as opposed to Saturn’s horizontal ring system.

Surrounding Uranus’ north pole is a glowing haze that NASA has previously reported as appearing when the pole is in direct sunlight during the summer. Atmospheric haze seems to get brighter every year, according to the space agency. With the exact mechanism behind the haze unknown, scientists are studying the polar cap using telescope images, like this new image from Webb.

In the original images Voyager 2 took of Uranus, the planet appeared as a featureless blue ball. In this new Webb image, similar to other recent Hubble Space Telescope images, storm clouds can be seen at the edge of the polar ice cap. Uranus’ tilt causes extreme seasons and this stormy weather, and scientists are tracking and documenting the changes over time by comparing images from telescopes.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope also captured Uranus’s bright white polar cap in November, illuminating the haze’s increasing brightness when observed compared to images from previous years. The new Webb image shows the polar ice cap in more detail than the Hubble image, with a subtle glow in the center of the ice cap and more pronounced storm clouds that can be seen at the edges.

Uranus has been identified as a study priority in 2022 by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. “Additional studies of Uranus are now underway, and more are planned in Webb’s first year of science operations,” NASA’s statement following the announcement said.