The newly deployed JamesWebbSpaceTelescope has once again turned its attention to planets closer to home, capturing Neptune in a remarkable way.
The most powerful space telescope ever built, which launched at the end of 2021, used its infrared imaging capabilities to show the distant planet in a fresh light. Features include Neptune’s prominent narrow rings and fainter dust bands, which NASA says have not been detected since 1989 when Voyager 2 passed close by.
Neptune is located in the outer solar system, 30 times further from the sun than Earth, and was discovered by astronomers in 1846. NASA says that Neptune’s vast distance from our sun means that high noon on the planet is “similar to a dim twilight on Earth.” The image taken by the Webb telescope also shows seven of Neptune’s 14 known moons, including its largest, Triton. You can see them in the image below.
The space agency notes that Triton orbits Neptune in an unusual backward orbit, behavior that suggests it could once have been part of the Kuiper Belt — a band of rock, ice, comets, and dwarf planets in the outer solar system — before being gravitationally captured by Neptune.
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