Jupiter

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s latest and most powerful telescope, has captured new images of our solar system’s largest planet, Jupiter, presenting it in a never before seen light. 

• The photographs published have captured a new view of the planet, presenting in detail its massive storms, colourful auroras, faint rings and two small moons — Amalthea and Adrastea.

Unprecedented View

• While most of us are familiar with the yellow and reddish-brown gas giant, the telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera, with its specialized infrared filters, has shown Jupiter encompassed in blue, green, white, yellow and orange hues. 
• Since infrared light is not visible to the human eye, the images were artificially coloured to match those on the visible spectrum, so that the planet’s distinctive features could stand out.
• Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot, a storm so big that it could swallow Earth, appeared bright white in the image, since it was reflecting a lot of sunlight.
• The brightness here indicates high altitude so the Great Red Spot has high-altitude hazes, as does the equatorial region.
• The numerous bright white ‘spots’ and ‘streaks’ are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of condensed convective storms.

The Webb Telescope

• NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Telescope was developed with the assistance of the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
• It was launched to space on December 25, 2021 and is currently observing from Lagrange point 2, approximately 1.5 million km beyond Earth’s orbit around the Sun.