Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

James Webb captures the rarely-seen rings around Uranus

Georgina Torbet
By

The James Webb Space Telescope spends much of its time peering out into distant regions of space searching for some of the earliest galaxies to exist, but it also occasionally turns its sights onto targets a little closer to home. Following up on its image of Neptune released last year, astronomers using Webb have just released a brand-new image of Uranus as you’ve never seen it before.

As Webb looks in the infrared wavelength, unlike telescopes like Hubble which look in the visible light spectrum, its image of Uranus picks out some features of the planet which are hard to see otherwise like its dusty rings. Uranus’ rings are almost invisible in the optical wavelength, but in this new image, they stand out proudly.

Zoomed-in image of Uranus reveals stunning views of the planet’s rings.
This zoomed-in image of Uranus, captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on 6 February 2023, reveals stunning views of the planet’s rings. The planet displays a blue hue in this representative-color image, made by combining data from two filters (F140M, F300M) at 1.4 and 3.0 microns, shown here as blue and orange, respectively. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. DePasquale (STScI)

Uranus has some unusual features compared to other planets in our solar system, as it is almost completely tilted onto its side. Compared to the orbital plane in which the planets sit, Uranus’ axis sits at 98 degrees, meaning that during its northern summer, the sun shines directly onto its north pole and never sets. Researchers believe that this extreme tilt may be due to a massive body that grazed the planet at some point in its history, pushing it onto its side.

Recommended Videos

That tilt means that when Webb viewed Uranus, it saw its polar cap head-on: The blob of white to the right side of the planet in the image, which is visible throughout summer but disappears in autumn. Looking at this cap using Webb’s sensitive instruments, astronomers were able to see a brighter region in the center of the cap which hadn’t been observed before and also to see other features like two bright clouds (one on the edge of the polar cap and one on the right edge of the planet) which are related to storm activity.

Related

And of course those rings. Uranus has 13 known rings, of which 11 are visible here — though some are bright enough to have merged into each other. These rings are composed of dust, are dotted with small moons, and are thought to be relatively young compared to the planet. Though the small moons within the rings are too faint to be seen, six of the planet’s more distant moons are visible in the wider-view image of the planet.

This wider view of the Uranian system with Webb’s NIRCam instrument features the planet Uranus as well as six of its 27 known moons (most of which are too small and faint to be seen in this short exposure). A handful of background objects, including many galaxies, are also seen.
This wider view of the Uranian system with Webb’s NIRCam instrument features the planet Uranus as well as six of its 27 known moons (most of which are too small and faint to be seen in this short exposure). A handful of background objects, including many galaxies, are also seen. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. DePasquale (STScI)

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
James Webb Space Telescope celebrated on new stamps
Two new stamps celebrating the James Webb Space Telescope, issued by the USPS in January 2024.

Two new stamps celebrating the James Webb Space Telescope, issued by the USPS in January 2024. USPS

Beautiful images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope have landed on a new set of stamps issued this week by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).

Read more
See a festive cosmic chicken captured by the VLT Survey Telescope
The Running Chicken Nebula comprises several clouds, all of which we can see in this vast image from the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), hosted at ESO’s Paranal site. This 1.5-billion pixel image spans an area in the sky of about 25 full Moons. The clouds shown in wispy pink plumes are full of gas and dust, illuminated by the young and hot stars within them.

A new image from the VLT Survey Telescope shows a beautiful region called the Running Chicken Nebula, which makes for a striking festive scene. Located 6,500 light-years away, this region is full of bright young stars that sculpt the clouds of dust and gas around them to form complex structures.

The Running Chicken Nebula comprises several clouds, all of which we can see in this vast image from the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), hosted at European Southern Observatory’s Paranal site. This 1.5-billion-pixel image spans an area in the sky of about 25 full moons. The clouds shown in wispy pink plumes are full of gas and dust, and are illuminated by the young and hot stars within them. ESO/VPHAS+ team. Acknowledgement: CASU

Read more
James Webb captures a unique view of Uranus’s ring system
This image of Uranus from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the planet and its rings in new clarity. The Webb image exquisitely captures Uranus’s seasonal north polar cap, including the bright, white, inner cap and the dark lane in the bottom of the polar cap. Uranus’ dim inner and outer rings are also visible in this image, including the elusive Zeta ring—the extremely faint and diffuse ring closest to the planet.

A festive new image from the James Webb Space Telescope has been released, showing the stunning rings of Uranus. Although these rings are hard to see in the visible light wavelength -- which is why you probably don't think of Uranus as having rings like Saturn -- these rings shine out brightly in the infrared wavelength that Webb's instruments operate in.

The image was taken using Webb's NIRCam instrument and shows the rings in even more detail than a previous Webb image of Uranus, which was released earlier this year.

Read more