JWST: Jupiter watched by a space telescope

The first images from JWST were released in July of 2022. Galaxies, stars, nebulae, and even observations of the atmosphere of a distant exoplanet are just a hint at what the space-based observatory will do in the future.

Astronomers and engineers ran a series of tests to see how well the telescope could track objects before the images were released. In a year around the Sun, deep-space objects only move about 1 per day, which is less than a day per year. It is not hard.

Solar system objects are moving faster. They move against the background stars because they move against the Sun, and they also move faster than the outer planets. Astronomers need to be able to see these targets.

The King of the Planets was ordered to be pointed to. It is big and bright, so exposures can be short, and it can move more quickly than other outer planets, so we are all set.

The images were made public in the archive. A lot of people used their skills to create images from the data. The results were amazing. Oh, my!

Here is the official image taken by the Near-Infrared Camera.

That's right, whoa.

The light in this picture was picked up by a 2.12 micron filter, which selects light with a wavelength about three times what the human eye can see. It cuts out a lot of light that would otherwise overwhelm the camera when looking at something as bright as Jupiter, because this particular filter lets through a very narrow range of wavelength. The filter can be used to look at star formation regions in the galaxies.

The image has been cleaned a lot. The raw images were used to build the telescope. Black dots on Jupiter can be seen because they are in the detector that isn't accurate. Think of it as trying to fill a bucket with a fire hose, with most of the water splashing out, because the bright object on the left was so bright it saturated the detectors. That is not an exact analogy.

The broad stripes can be seen in Jupiter's cloud tops. The image looks different because it's in the IR. The Great Red Spot emits a lot of light at 2.12 microns, so it looks very bright. There are poles that are bright here. planetary scientists will be able to understand the chemistry and behavior of Jupiter's clouds thanks to the differences between visible and IR light.

It's functional and pretty cool. Some people who enjoy playing with space telescope images got their hands on the data.

Ian Regan has a long history of using space-based data to process images. Various techniques were used to bring out the details. There is more structure in the planet's atmosphere and shadow of the Great Red Spot. It's lovely.

I have written about Judy's work before, but she did something different, creating a color image from three different filters, and it was jaw-dropping.

It's a really bad day. She used a combination of two filters to create a red layer, one of which allowed in light from a wide range of wavelength.

Her images have a stretched contrast which shows two remarkable features.

Jupiter's ring is the first thing that comes to mind. It can be seen as a thin elliptical arcs on the right and left of the planet. The main ring of Jupiter was discovered in 1979 when the giant planet was visited by the space shuttle. The rings were not found immediately. The main ring is mostly dust. There are two bright spots in the ring on the right side of Jupiter, one of which may be a source of dust. The moon Thebe is visible on the left side of the picture.

It was a surprise to see the ring, but not as big as the bright arcs on the right of Jupiter.

I don't know what that is. It could be a piece of the camera that observes the bright planet. You would expect it to be a solid disk. A haze layer of particles suspended high above the cloud tops is thought to be real. It is possible that the sun is illuminating a thin layer in the upper atmosphere by coming in from the left. Scientists were not expecting another free bonus from JWST.

This is a sign of things to come. It is possible to observe objects from inside the solar system to the edge of the observable Universe. It's just beginning.

You are just waiting. There is more to come. A large amount.

Venus and Mercury are not allowed to be seen by JWST because they are too close to the sun. The observatory is designed to keep the sun out so that the instruments and mirrors don't get hot. It can only see solar system objects outside of Earth's circle.