James Webb Space Telescope turns its focus on Uranus 

What’s new in the space news? Turns out, NASA’s famous James Webb Space Telescope has recently shifted its focus on Uranus, the seventh planet in our solar system. In fact, its golden and infrared lenses have captured the turquoise planet in all its glory, including moons, rings and everything else.  

As we all know, every celestial body, especially the planets and the dwarf planets has their own set of quirks, however, Uranus stands out above all. How? Well, at a glance, its icy, pale blue world looks fairly ordinary, but as one takes a closer look, they realise that its more remarkable than earlier presumed.  

For instance, the thermal imaging installed in the James Webb Space Telescope that comprises of radio and infrared wavelengths have been able to delve into the planet’s physical properties, such as the nature of its faint and gelid rings.  

In fact, this time around, only 12 minutes was spared by the James Webb Space Telescope to analyse Uranus, but by then it had revealed never seen before details. For instance, it captured the unique rotation of the planet, tipped over on one of its side adjacent to the orbital plane. This proves that its polar seasons are very different in nature than those in other solar system planets. Such as what? Well, turns out, during its 84-year orbit, the poles of Uranus the full sunshine, but complete darkness during the winter.  

Previously, when a spacecraft flew by Uranus, it was Voyager 2 in the year 1986. Back then it was summer on the south pole. At present, it is late spring in the north pole, with summer approaching in 2028. In fact, the James Webb Space Telescope was able to photograph an unusual feature, aka, a polar brightening as the planet slowly moves towards the full light of summer. Now, what causes this vibrant polar cap is still a mystery, but scientists are hoping for new insights after further study. However, one thing is for sure, it’s the centre of the polar cap that is brighter than the rest of it.  

Besides these, the telescope also managed to capture dense clouds near Uranus, that researchers presume were a result of storm activity in its hydrogen and helium-made atmosphere. In addition, the James Webb Space Telescope also imaged 11 out of 13 rings circling Uranus, including the couple of dim and dusty inner rings that are so faint that they were not discovered until Voyager 2 noticed them in 1986. Now, the scientists are hoping that the two remaining faint outer rings be also seen soon by James Webb Space Telescope or its competitors.  

Last but not the least, more than half of Uranus’ 27 moons were also captured by the telescope. This revealed that six bigger moons share their orbital plane with Uranus' own equatorial plane. In contrast, there are also distant and irregular moons that have their own inclined and elliptical orbits, much like Jupiter’s irregular moons. Scientists are hopeful that analysing the moons in details will further help analyse how Uranus became the way it is today.  

NASA has stated that more such Uranus explorations by the James Webb Space Telescope are scheduled for the near future.