Neptune and Its Rings Come Into Focus With Webb Telescope

The last time a craft visited Neptune was in 1989 when the NASA probe Voyager 2 flew by. The most distant planet in our solar system is Neptune, which is four times the size of Earth. Astronomers were eager to learn more about the ice giant after seeing the observations of the second spaceship.

We came back now. It's sort of.

On Wednesday, the telescope cast its powerful gold- plated eye onto the remote world. The biggest and most advanced telescope ever sent to space has given us some of the best views of Neptune in 30 years.

The astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore has been waiting for the images of Neptune for a long time. It has worked so well that I am happy.

The Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based observatories have taken pictures of Neptune. The views of Neptune taken by the Webb in July show the planet in a new way.

It took just a few minutes for the telescope to image Neptune close up and another 20 to take a wider view of the universe. Klaus Pontoppidan is a scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Neptune's rings are seen in the telescope's view at a slight tilt. Astronomers will be able to measure the ring's reflectivity with the help of the telescope. The thin bands are probably made of ice and other debris.

The ring system was mind-blowing to me. I haven't seen it in that level of detail in a long time. It comes out.

Clouds of methane ice, which rise high into the planet's skies and can persist for days, can be seen across the planet.

Patrick Irwin is a planetary physicist at Oxford University. They seem to come and go. Future observations of the telescope could reveal how they form.

Seven of Neptune's 14 moons are shown. Scientists believe that the largest moon in the solar system was captured by Neptune. Methane dims the planet in the light and makes it shine like a star. There isn't much that can be gleaned from this image because NASA didn't send a mission. Changes in the composition of the surface should be indicative of geological activity.

The world is geologically active. The eruptions of cryovolcanoes were seen when the second plane flew by. There is a chance that the surface chemistry will change over time. We're going to look for that.

Hippocampus, an eighth Neptunian moon, can be seen just above the planet. She said it was in the right place.

The images of Neptune are the latest in a series. We saw a glimpse of Mars this week and over the summer we saw amazing views of Jupiter. A lot more of our solar system will come under the eye of the observatory, including the dwarf planet Pluto.

Mark McCaughrean is a senior scientific adviser at the European Space Agency. Mars and Neptune are both very bright and faint. Everyone now knows that it works.