Image of Saturn and some of its moons, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam instrument on June 25, 2023. Image: NASA
SPACE — The first photos of Saturn from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) did not disappoint. On Friday, June 30, 2023, NASA released Webb images showing planets with rings in a whole new way.
According to NASA officials, the stunning photo taken on June 25 by the observatory’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument has already piqued the interest of researchers. “Saturn itself appears very dark at infrared wavelengths observed by telescopes, because the methane gas absorbs almost all sunlight falling into its atmosphere. However, the icy rings remain relatively bright, leading to the unusual appearance of Saturn in the Webb images,” said NASA. .
This captivating image was shot during 20 hours of the JWST Saturn-observing campaign. As recent photos show, image processing makes Saturn’s world different from what it’s used to.
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Meanwhile, the latest photo shows Saturn’s rings as a bright star. Webb also highlighted Enceladus, Dione, and Tethys, three of Saturn’s 145 known moons.
Detail from this photo of Saturn and some of its moons taken by JWST on June 25, 2025. Images: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. Tiscareno.
Enceladus is of particular interest to astrobiologists, as it is thought to have an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy shell. The moon blasts some of its subsurface water into space via geysers near its south pole, a dramatic feature discovered by NASA’s Cassini probe in 2005 and recently observed by Webb.
The Webb telescope is designed to peer into the deep veils of time, allowing astronomers to see some of the first stars and galaxies in the universe. However, as the new Saturn shots show, observatories can also observe objects close to Earth.
Indeed, the US$10 billion telescope has also taken stunning photos of Uranus and provided scientists with an extraordinary view of Jupiter and its polar auroras. The Webb program is just getting started, launching on December 25, 2021 and starting science operations in the middle of last year. Source: Space.com
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2023-07-02 13:32:58
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