(C) BoingBoing
This story was originally published by BoingBoing and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



New space telescope took a picture of Uranus [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2023-04-06

NIRCam, the near-Infrared camera aboard the Webb Space Telescope, captured this handsome high-resolution image of Uranus. It looks so clean!

This zoomed-in image of Uranus, captured by Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) Feb. 6, 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, which are shown here as blue and orange, respectively.

On the right side of the planet there's an area of brightening at the pole facing the Sun, known as a polar cap. This polar cap is unique to Uranus because it is the only planet in the solar system tilted on its side, which causes its extreme seasons. A new aspect of the polar cap revealed by Webb is a subtle brightening near the Uranian north pole.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2023/04/06/heres-a-picture-of-uranus.html

Published and (C) by BoingBoing
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/boingboing/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.