Jupiter like never seen before, through the Webb telescope

While most of us are familiar with the yellow and reddish-brown gas giant, the telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera, with its specialized infrared filters, has shown Jupiter encompassed in blue, green, white, yellow and orange hues.

An image of Jupiter obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope on July 27. (NASA)

The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s latest and most powerful telescope, has captured new images of our solar system’s largest planet, Jupiter, presenting it in a never before seen light. The photographs published on Monday have captured a new view of the planet, presenting in detail its massive storms, colourful auroras, faint rings and two small moons — Amalthea and Adrastea.

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Unprecedented view

While most of us are familiar with the yellow and reddish-brown gas giant, the telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera, with its specialized infrared filters, has shown Jupiter encompassed in blue, green, white, yellow and orange hues. Since infrared light is not visible to the human eye, the images were artificially coloured to match those on the visible spectrum, so that the planet’s distinctive features could stand out, according to NASA.

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Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot, a storm so big that it could swallow Earth, appeared bright white in the image, since it was reflecting a lot of sunlight, the space agency stated.

A NASA blog post quoted Heidi Hammel, interdisciplinary scientist for the James Webb telescope, as saying: “The brightness here indicates high altitude — so the Great Red Spot has high-altitude hazes, as does the equatorial region…The numerous bright white ‘spots’ and ‘streaks’ are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of condensed convective storms.”

Giant news from a giant planet!@NASAWebb captured a new view of Jupiter in infrared light, uncovering clues to the planet’s inner life. Two moons, rings, and distant galaxies are visible. Get the details: https://t.co/6WKbAQY78z pic.twitter.com/9uaACCPGyU

— NASA (@NASA) August 22, 2022

The Webb telescope

NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Telescope was developed with the assistance of the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

An image of Jupiter obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope on July 27. (NASA)

It was launched to space on December 25, 2021 and is currently observing from Lagrange point 2, approximately 1.5 million km beyond Earth’s orbit around the Sun. The telescope released its first image on July 11 2022.

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The technology

The incredible images taken by the James Webb telescope don’t arrive on Earth as we currently see them, according to NASA’s blog post. Instead, scientists receive raw data about the brightness of the light captured on Webb’s detectors, which is then processed and translated into images by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), Webb’s mission and science operations centre.