ABSOLUTELY REMARKABLE, JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE CAPTURES STUNNING NEW IMAGE OF NEPTUNE AND ITS RINGS
NASA announced Wednesday that the James Webb Space Telescope has turned its gaze away from the deep universe and toward our own Solar System, capturing an image of a luminous Neptune and its delicate, dusty rings in detail not seen in decades. The last time astronomers had such a clear view of the planet farthest from the sun was in 1989, when NASA's Voyager 2 became the first and only space probe to pass by the ice giant for a few hours. According to Mark McCaughrean, a senior advisor for science and exploration at the European Space Agency, Webb's unprecedented infrared imaging capabilities have now provided a new glimpse into Neptune's atmosphere. According to McCaughrean, who has worked on the Webb project for more than 20 years, the telescope "takes all that glare and background away" so that "we can start to tease out the atmospheric composition" of the planet. Neptune appears deep blue in previous Hubble Space Telescope images due to methane in it...
