NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has once again made a remarkable discovery, this time uncovering new information about the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter. The Webb Telescope, renowned for its ability to peer billions of years into the past and unravel mysteries of space and galaxies, has captured mesmerizing images of Jupiter’s atmosphere, revealing extraordinary and previously unseen facts that have astonished scientists.
According to a recent report by NASA, the James Webb Telescope has achieved a groundbreaking feat by capturing images of a high-speed jet stream spanning over 4800 kilometers wide at Jupiter’s equator. This discovery promises to provide scientists with fresh insights into Jupiter’s climate and dynamics. Ricardo Hueso of the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain, expressed his surprise, stating, “This is something that totally surprised us. What we have always seen as blurred hazes in Jupiter’s atmosphere now appear as crisp features that we can track along with the planet’s fast rotation.”
The July 2022 images, obtained using the NIRCam instruments on the James Webb Telescope, were primarily focused on studying Jupiter’s atmosphere. These images were taken every 10 hours over the course of one Jupiter day, employing four different filters capable of detecting subtle changes in features at varying altitudes. Additionally, the telescope delved into higher-altitude layers of Jupiter’s atmosphere, approximately 25-50 kilometers above its cloud tops.
The remarkable finding includes the measurement of Jupiter’s jet stream, clocking in at an astounding speed of approximately 515 kilometers per hour. NASA notes that this speed surpasses that of a Category 5 hurricane on Earth. The sharp images and infrared capabilities of the Webb Telescope, combined with data from the Hubble Space Telescope, enabled scientists to detect and track this jet stream for the first time.
Known as the most powerful and largest space telescope ever built, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is an integral part of NASA’s Great Observatories, which also includes the Hubble Space Telescope. Its primary function is to capture and focus light, allowing us to peer farther back in time than ever before. Positioned at the L2 Lagrange point, approximately 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth, the JWST continues to amaze scientists with its extraordinary capabilities.
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