Uranus "makes itself beautiful": the Webb telescope shows the rings of the blue planet

The Rings of Uranus Immortalized in Stunning Photography .

Even if out of focus (because zoomed in), the image is clear and reveals to the eyes of researchers but also curious and passionate the silhouette of the celestial body , with 11 of its 13 rings . Once again, the James Webb telescope captured the concentric circles that embrace the great blue planet. NASA's eye on space already in 2022 had immortalized the image of the rings of the "neighbor" Neptune. And now the new goal, with which he has demonstrated the sensitivity of his devices which have also detected the faintest dust rings on the planet, photographed in the past only by the Voyager 2 spacecraft while flying over the planet (in 1986) and by the Keck Observatory .

To separate Uranus from the Sun, six other "giants": Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Its characteristics are unique : it rotates on its side, at an angle of about 90 degrees from the plane of its orbit and this causes extreme seasons as the planet's poles experience many years of constant sunlight followed by an equal number of years of complete darkness . At the moment, on the frozen planet, it is late spring and summer will "only" arrive in 2028. The shot is dated February 6, 2023.

(Unioneonline/vf)