Webb's new Neptune images reveal ghostly, stunning rings

The most well-known of the nearby planets isSaturn. Astronomers are being reminded that Neptune has bling as well.

A new telescope image shows Neptune, which looks like a blue ball on an opaque background, as a dark sphere with delicate hoops of dust and a scattering of moons. It is surrounded by never-before-seen galaxies billions of light-years away, just like all of the other photos in the series.

The clearest shot of the ice-giant planet has been taken in more than three decades. The rings that haven't been seen since 1989 are on display. For the first time, the pictures show a band of clouds around the south pole.

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The $10 billion telescope's ability to collect extraordinary data not just of the distant universe, but also of objects closer to home is demonstrated by the vivid imagery taken of this solar system. A golden age in our understanding of the universe is predicted by scientists.

"I'm not going to lie." I ugly-cried when I saw the first Neptune images. "'O M G - LOOK AT THE RINGS' I was yelling, making my kids, my mom, and my cats look at me." It has been more than 20 years in the making.

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Neptune is the farthest planet from the sun. Even if it were still considered the ninth planet, Neptune is still far away. Neptune can't be seen by the naked eye because it takes about 165 years to make a loop around the star. The ice giant would be as big as a basketball if it were the size of a nickel.

It's a dark, windy world that only gets a dim twilight's worth of sun at its high noon time.

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The planet's atmosphere was captured in a photo shoot by the telescope on July 12. The institute says that the most prominent features are bright spots in the lower half.

The Hubble Space Telescope has pictures of Neptune that show it as a bright blue sphere because of methane gas. Because methane absorbs red and IR light, it seems dark through the eyes of the person who sees it.