KONTAN.CO.ID – Planet Neptune looks stunning! This image was captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. The planet in the Solar System furthest from the Sun appears to have rings like Saturn.
Do you remember the lessons in school about the names of the planets of the Solar System? Can you name the planet farthest from the sun?
Yes, Neptune is absolutely right. Neptune is the eighth planet in the Solar System and the farthest from the Sun. Besides the farthest, Neptune is also the fourth largest planet by diameter and third by mass.
Speaking of Neptune, there is some pretty interesting news from this planet which is named after the Roman god of the ocean.
Quoted by Time of science (09/23/2022), this latest portrait of Neptune is the first to be captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Planetary sightings may be familiar, but this time the portrait of Neptune looks different.
This blue planet appears to be surrounded by rings like Saturn. Just so you know, this is the best portrait of the planet Neptune that JWST has captured in more than 30 years.
This latest image of Neptune also provides new information about the planet, dubbed the ice giant.
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Through the official Twitter account of the NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem), this ring image of the planet Neptune is incorporated caption:
“We have always been big fans of Saturn, but the rings of Neptune give us an idea of this new image.”
Did NASA start spinning from Saturn to Neptune after seeing the appearance of this ring?
Despite everything, the discovery of Neptune in 1989 through NASA’s Voyager 2 exploration was unable to detect the planet’s rings. However, with JWST’s new photo, we can see a sharper look of the rings and a fainter dust band in addition to the numerous thin, shiny rings.
According to NASA, Voyager 2 has made its closest approach to any planet since it left Earth 12 years ago, passing 4,950 kilometers above Neptune’s north pole.
“This is the first time that faint dusty rings have been observed in the infrared,” said Heidi Hammel, Neptune systems expert and transdisciplinary scientist for JWST.
It had been thirty years since we last saw them. This faint link was found so close to Neptune due to the very consistent and precise image quality of the JWST.
For more information, Neptune is a planet that looks blue. This blue color is caused by methane in the outermost region of the planet.
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However, the image captured by JWST does not appear blue. This is because JWST uses Near infrared camera (NIRCam) which only sees objects in the near infrared spectrum between 0.6 and 5 microns.
The bright streaks and grains of methane ice clouds are visible as they reflect sunlight before it is absorbed by the methane gas.
This new image of Neptune shows not only the rings, but also objects that look like stars. That’s Triton, the great moon of Neptune.
Triton reflects on average 70% of the light it receives thanks to its condensed nitrogen luster.
Interesting right? It turns out that the planet farthest from the Sun still has a mystery that has finally been unraveled thanks to the sophistication of JWST.
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