With its ability to look deeper into the universe than ever before, it has made headlines, but it will also be used to look at some targets closer to home. One of the first research projects it will be used for will be to study Jupiter and its moons.
NASA and its partners, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, released the first images it has taken of targets in our solar system, showing how capable the James Bond-like explorer is. The stripes of Jupiter can be seen in the images, as well as some of the moons of Jupiter, which can be seen below.
One of the researchers said, "These images of Jupiter demonstrate the full grasp of what we can observe, from the faintest, most distant observable galaxies to planets in our own Cosmic backyard that you can see with the naked eye from your actual backyard."
The images were taken with different filters which picked out different features The moons Metis and Thebe can be seen more clearly in the 3.2-micron filter on the right.
The deputy project scientist for planetary science said that she couldn't believe how bright the objects were. We have the ability to observe these kinds of objects in our solar system.
Jupiter's rarely seen rings were captured using a longer wavelength filter.
More than the researchers had expected, the variety of features picked up in these images promise great things about the potential to investigate targets here in our solar system.
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