The European Space Agency (ESA) released this Wednesday (21) an image of Neptune’s rings captured by the James Webb Telescope – the sharpest photo of the planet in more than 30 years.
In a statement, ESA said that some of the rings had never been seen, “much less clearly, since the flyby of Voyager 2 in 1989.”
The image shows, in addition to several bright, narrow rings, the faintest dust lanes on Neptune.
“Webb’s extremely stable and accurate image quality also allows these very faint rings to be detected so close to Neptune,” the agency said.
Neptune was discovered in 1846, and ever since, it has fascinated and baffled researchers with the findings.
The planet is located 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth and orbits in one of the darkest areas of the Solar System.
At this extreme distance, the Sun is so small and faint that noon on Neptune is similar to twilight on Earth.
“It’s been three decades since we last saw these faint, dusty rings, and this is the first time we’ve seen them in the infrared,” said Heidi Hammel, Neptune system expert and James Webb interdisciplinary scientist in the statement.
Webb’s extremely stable and accurate image quality allows these very faint rings to be detected so close to Neptune.
Neptune’s Characteristics
Neptune is a planet classified as an ice giant due to the chemical composition of its interior.
Compared to others of the same type, such as Jupiter and Saturn, Neptune is much richer in heavier elements than hydrogen and helium.
NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images show these features with the signature blue appearance of Neptune at visible wavelengths, caused by small amounts of gaseous methane.
Neptune has a very strong magnetic field and also has a ring system consisting of at least five rings, some being thinner than others.
The Webb telescope also captured seven of the planet’s 14 known moons.
Standing out in the Webb image is a very bright point of light sporting the characteristic diffraction peaks seen in many of the telescope images, but this is not a star. Instead, this is Neptune’s unusually large moon Triton.
Source: CNN Brasil
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