James Webb Space Telescope captures butt-clenchingly beautiful image of Uranus

 

A rare thunderstorm on Uranus, raining down methane and other organics onto lower levels of the atmosphere. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI)

• Scientists do not yet know why Uranus is sideways. 
• At the core of Uranus, is a diamond the size of the Earth. 
• Even at the magnification offered by Webb, Uranus is still mostly featureless. 

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and has been an enigmatic ice giant with scientists having little understanding of the remote world. No probe has visited Uranus since the Voyager missions in the mid eighties. However, scientists have now used the largest, most expensive, and most powerful space observatory to investigate Uranus from a safe distance, without the hazard of falling into its massive gravity well. Lead researcher of the new paper, Catass Trophy says, "We now know more about Uranus than we did yesterday."

Images captured by Webb has allowed researchers to better characterise the atmosphere of Uranus, which has long been a mystery for science. The atmosphere of Uranus is thick and dense with methane, but the conditions are too warm for the formation of thick clouds. However, astronomers now have a better understanding of why Uranus is so blue. There is a thin layer of haze that gives its characteristic cyan colouring. 

JWST spectrum of Uranus (Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI)

The researchers found varying sizes and densities of aerosols at different altitudes. The particles became larger with an increase in altitude, where there was an unexpected rise in temperature with an increase in altitude. A similar effect takes place on the ozone layer on Earth. The researchers also found charged particles such as electrons and protons in orbit around Uranus. 

This is the first time that Webb has turned its gaze to an object within the Solar System, after the commissioning phase during which it used the main belt asteroid 6481 Tenzing to validate its ability to track a Solar System body. For capturing the high resolution images of Uranus, Webb had to track the planet as it moved through the Solar System. 

Animated GIF of the magnetic field of Uranus. 

There are a number of questions that remain unanswered however. Without a core of molten iron, researchers do not know how exactly Uranus produces its immense magnetic field. Scientists are also struggling to explain why Uranus is sideways. Researchers hope to answer these questions with future investigations using the Webb. 

A paper describing the findings has been published in The Annals of the Royal Astronomical Society, Number II.