Fresh imagery from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals the rings of Uranus in all their infrared glory.
The newly released view of the seventh rock from the sun is just one of the stunning shots of extraterrestrial scenes recently sent back by interplanetary probes. The past few days have also brought noteworthy images of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter lying dormant on Mars and volcanoes flaring up on a moon of Jupiter.
But wait … there’s more: Research based on readings from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is turning a spotlight on Mimas, a Saturnian moon that looks like the Death Star from the Star Wars movie. Could Mimas’ icy crust conceal a watery ocean? Stay tuned …
Uranus seen in a new light
JWST’s Near-Infrared Camera, or NIRCam, has captured a series of views of Uranus over the past couple of years. The planet’s rings hare hard to make out in visible light, but they shine brightly in infrared.
The case is much the same for the storms and clouds that disturb Uranus’ chilly atmosphere. In visible light, the planet’s disk has a mostly bland blue look, thanks to the effect of a methane haze. But the infrared view from Feb. 6 shows a disk mottled with bright spots.
Similar spots have been seen in previous JWST imagery — and have been attributed to storms. “The number of these storms, and how frequently and where they appear in Uranus’ atmosphere, might be due to a combination of seasonal and meteorological effects,” NASA says.
Uranus’ north polar cap also shines brightly in the infrared. “The polar cap appears to become more prominent when the planet’s pole begins to point toward the sun, as it approaches solstice and receives more sunlight,” NASA says. “Uranus reaches its next solstice in 2028, and astronomers are eager to watch any possible changes in the structure of these features.”
Uranus has long been the butt of jokes, so to speak, but studying the ice giant is no laughing matter: NASA is giving serious consideration to sending an orbiter and a piggyback atmospheric probe to the planet in the 2030s — and JWST’s observations could help scientists interested in the workings of the outer solar system get ready for their closeup.
Check out the views that were passed along by image-processing wizards Andrea Luck and Jacint Roger Perez (a.k.a. @landru79):
4/4 To celebrate this Cloudy Ice Giant, I created a quick animation using the last three images of Uranus taken by JWST.
Full size images and more info here: https://t.co/nQ8vHOqoUN
Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/AndreaLuck CC BY #Space #Uranus #Astronomy #IceGiants #JWST pic.twitter.com/wppPCp1Z9J
— Andrea Luck (@andrluck) February 7, 2024
Mars rover spots Ingenuity helicopter
The first helicopter to fly in Martian skies made its last landing three weeks ago — but at the time, NASA’s Perseverance rover was too far away to capture a picture of its Ingenuity rotorcraft.
Since then, Perseverance trekked close enough to snap a series of pictures showing Ingenuity nestled amid the Martian dunes from a distance of about 1,475 feet (450 meters). German image processor Simeon Schmauss put together the pictures to create a video that zooms in on the now-grounded reconnaissance drone:
Zooming in on Ingenuity's final resting place among the sand ripples in Neretva Vallis.
Full resolution panorama: https://t.co/jbDkOAM5bB
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Simeon Schmauß #ThanksIngenuity #MarsHelicopter pic.twitter.com/EiBZYYjbZR
— Simeon Schmauß (@stim3on) February 5, 2024
Another photo, taken by Ingenuity’s onboard camera, shows the jagged shadow of a rotor blade that was damaged during the helicopter’s rough landing. Because of such damage, Ingenuity is no longer capable of flight — but the fact it was able to operate for three years in Mars’ thin atmosphere has given scientists hope that more advanced aircraft will someday be surveying the Red Planet from above once again.
In recognition of the little robot’s valor, the Ingenuity team has nicknamed the spot where the helicopter finished its last flight “Valinor Hills.” It’s an apt name: At the end of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” saga, Frodo Baggins is allowed to sail westward to Valinor — the “Undying Lands” guarded by the Elves — to find healing for the wounds he suffered during his epic journey through Mordor.
Juno focuses on volcanic Io
NASA’s bus-sized Juno orbiter has been taking pictures of Jupiter since 2016, but its latest target is Io, one of the giant planet’s bigger moons. Io has the distinction of being the most volcanically active world in the solar system, trumping even Earth.
Juno flew within about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of Io’s surface on Dec. 30 — the closest flyby since the Galileo spacecraft took a look more than 20 years ago. Juno followed up with a second close flyby this month, and volunteer image processors have been having a field day with the resulting data.
NASA notes that the global views show mountain peaks with well-defined shadows, as well as lava lakes — some with apparent islands.
An image that was captured on Feb. 3 shows two volcanic plumes rising above the edge of Io’s disk — emitted either by two vents from one giant volcano, or from two volcanoes near each other.
“The Juno team will be analyzing this against other data from Juno and from other missions to better understand this,” the mission team says.
To see JunoCam’s raw images as well as the processed views produced by volunteers, check out the JunoCam image processing gallery. You can even download the raw data and submit your own processed work.
Mimas may have a hidden ocean
For nearly a decade, scientists have wondered whether Mimas, a 250-mile-wide moon of Saturn, might harbor a watery ocean beneath its icy surface. Now a team of researchers has laid out the strongest evidence yet for such a hidden sea, based on a detailed analysis of archival data from NASA’s Cassini orbiter about Mimas’ orbital motion.
The analysis, laid out today in the journal Nature, suggests that Mimas’ ocean came into being relatively recently in geological terms — probably less than 25 million years ago — and that it’s still evolving. If the scientists’ calculations are correct, the ocean would be covered by an icy layer that’s 12 to 18 miles thick.
Earlier analysis proposed that peculiarities Mimas’ orbital motion could be explained either by the effect of a liquid ocean sloshing around, or by the presence of a football-shaped core far beneath the surface ice. The Nature paper asserts that the presence of an ocean is more likely.
“Mimas was probably the most unlikely place to look for a global ocean — and liquid water more generally,” study co-author Valery Lainey of the Paris Observatory told The Associated Press in an email. “So that looks like a potential habitable world. But nobody knows how much time is needed for life to arise.”
Mimas, which has been compared to Darth Vader’s Death Star battle station because of its spookily large Herschel Crater, isn’t the only moon in the solar system that appears to have more than meets the eye. Other worlds thought to possess hidden bodies of water include the Jovian moons Europa, Callisto and Ganymede; the Saturnian moon Enceladus; and heck, maybe even the dwarf planets Ceres and Pluto.
Future space missions — such as NASA’s Europa Clipper mission — could shed more light on the solar system’s hidden seas. But when it comes to planetary exploration, this week brought a dose of bad news: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which has been involved in most of the missions we’ve mentioned, said it’s reducing its workforce by 8%, due to Congress’ failure to appropriate funding for fiscal year 2024 and the resulting uncertainty about plans to bring samples back from Mars.
