De nieuwste beelden van Jupiter van de James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) zijn verbluffend.

De infraroodbeelden, die op 27 juli werden vastgelegd, zijn kunstmatig gekleurd om specifieke kenmerken te laten opvallen en tonen fijne filigraan langs de randen van de gekleurde banden en rond de Grote Rode Vlek en bieden ook een ongekend zicht op de aurora's boven de noord- en zuidpool.

Eén groothoekopname toont een unieke line-up van de planeet, zijn zwakke ringen en twee van Jupiters kleinere satellieten - Amalthea en Adrastea - tegen een achtergrond van sterrenstelsels.

"We hebben Jupiter nog nooit zo gezien. Het is allemaal vrij ongelooflijk", zei planetaire astronoom Imke de Pater, emerita professor van de University of California, Berkeley, die samen met Thierry Fouchet, een professor aan de Paris Observatorium. "We hadden eerlijk gezegd niet verwacht dat het zo goed zou zijn. Het is echt opmerkelijk dat we details op Jupiter samen met zijn ringen, kleine satellieten en zelfs sterrenstelsels in één afbeelding kunnen zien."

De Pater, Fouchet en hun team hebben de beelden vandaag (22 augustus) vrijgegeven als onderdeel van het Early Release Science-programma van de telescoop.

In addition to the enormous storm referred to as the Great Red Spot, numerous storm systems—seen as small pallid ovals —are also visible, as are tiny bright plumes of cloud particles. The transition between organized zonal flows and the chaotic vortex patterns at higher latitudes is also clearly visible.

"Although we have seen many of these features on Jupiter before, JWST's infrared wavelengths give us a new perspective," said de Pater. "JWST's combination of images and spectra at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths will allow us to study the interplay of dynamics, chemistry and temperature structure in and above the Great Red Spot and the auroral regions."

Amalthea and Adrastea

JWST's Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) also captured a wide-field view of Jupiter revealing its rings and two of its moons.

"This image illustrates the sensitivity and dynamic range of JWST's NIRCam instrument," Fouchet said. "It reveals the bright waves, swirls and vortices in Jupiter's atmosphere and simultaneously captures the dark ring system, 1 million times fainter than the planet, as well as the moons Amalthea and Adrastea, which are roughly 200 and 20 kilometers across, respectively. This one image sums up the science of our Jupiter system program, which studies the dynamics and chemistry of Jupiter itself, its rings and its satellite system."

The JWST images were processed with the help of citizen scientist Judy Schmidt of Modesto, California, who has worked with Hubble Space Telescope and other telescope images for the past 10 years, and Ricardo Hueso, who studies planetary atmospheres at the University of the Basque Country in Spain. Hueso is one of several coinvestigators on the Early Release Science (ERS) program, and is leading the NIRCam observations of Jupiter's atmosphere.

Schmidt's love of astronomy images has led her to process images of nebulae, globular clusters, stellar nurseries and more spectacular cosmic objects.

"Something about it just stuck with me, and I can't stop. I could spend hours and hours every day," she said. Her goal, she added, is to "… try to get it to look natural, even if it's not anything close to what your eye can see."

Spectroscopic observations of Jupiter's auroras are scheduled for later this year, while detailed spectroscopic observations of Jupiter's Great Red Spot were taken on July 27 in the near-infrared and August 14-15 at mid-infrared wavelengths. The Great Red Spot observations are a joint project between the Early Release Science (ERS) team—with de Pater and Fouchet as co-principal investigators—and a program of Solar System observations developed by Heidi Hammel of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), with the Jupiter observations led by Leigh Fletcher, a professor at the University of Leicester in England.

Other UC Berkeley members of the ERS team for Jupiter observations are research astronomer Mike Wong and postdoctoral fellow Ned Molter. + Verder verkennen

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