On Wednesday, beautiful pictures of Neptune have been released by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. This planet has been seen for the first time and in a brand new light the rings present around this planet can also be seen which were very difficult to see. NASA has tweeted these photographs and people have shared them many times. Neptune’s distance is 30 times greater than Earth’s. The James Webb Telescope is a NASA mission that has been running for the last 10 years. Space agencies of Europe and Canada are also involved in this mission.
This information has been given in the press release issued by NASA. “This is the first time in three decades we’ve seen these new, dusty rings, and the first time we’ve seen this planet,” said Neptune expert Heidi Hamal on the Web project. In addition to the many thin rings, the new images also show light dusty bands of Neptune. Earlier in 1989, NASA’s Voyager 2 gave the first photographic evidence of the existence of Neptune’s rings.
Dark, cold and surrounded by supersonic winds, Neptune is the most distant planet in our solar system. This planet and its neighboring planet Uranus are known as the ‘Ice Monsters’. This is because its interior is made up of gas-heavy elements heavier than Jupiter and Saturn, which are rich in hydrogen and helium. Neptune is seen in white in the new pictures. Whereas Neptune appeared to be white in the pictures that came from the Hubble Space Telescope. It is being said that this happened due to the presence of methane gas in the atmosphere of Neptune at that time.
This planet is tilted towards the Earth and it takes 164 years to complete one revolution of the Sun. Geologists are yet to find any photographs or information of its north pole. James Webb has seen seven of Neptune’s 14 moons, including one of its largest moons, Titan. Titan orbits around it in an unusually inverted orbit.
