The James Webb space telescope has shifted its
focus from the distant universe to the solar system, taking a picture of a bright Neptune
and her wispy, dusty rings.
Since Nasa's Voyager 2 flew by Jupiter for a few hours in 1989, it has been the first-time
scientists have gotten such a clear picture of the furthest planet from the sun.
Webb's capacity to image in the infrared has now allowed us to get a fresh look at Neptune's
atmosphere.
So, what exactly has the JWST found on the planet Neptune?
How does this incredible finding change our perspective on the solar system as a whole?
Dive in with us as we explore the disturbing new finding on Neptune made by the James Webb
Space Telescope.
Neptune is the solar system's eighth and final planet.
Neptune's position as the eighth and final planet used to go back and forth between eighth
and ninth planet before Pluto was downgraded.
Neptune is a fascinating planet, and not just because of its electric blue hue, which makes
it stand out from the other planets.
Neptune was concealed from humans for eons since it is so far away and cannot be seen
without a strong telescope!
However, scientists found Neptune on the night of September 23-24, 1846.
The finding was made possible by mathematical predictions of its expected position as a
result of observable deviations in Uranus' orbit.
Neptune is too faint to be seen with the human eye, hence the discovery was made through
a telescope.
Astronomers quickly identified a moon circling Neptune, but it would take more than a century
to spot another!
After the discovery of Uranus in 1781, astronomers noticed anomalies in the seventh planet's
orbit that could not be explained by Newton's law of universal gravitation.
They hypothesized, however, that gravitational forces from a distant planet may account for
these anomalies.
Almost a full orbit of the Sun had been completed by Uranus by the time it was identified in
1845.
The two possible locations of this planet were separately computed by astronomers Urbain
Jean-Joseph Le Verrier of Paris and John Couch Adams of Cambridge, England.
Johann Gottfried Galle, using Le Verrier's calculations, made the first observations
of the new planet using the Fraunhofer telescope at the Berlin Observatory.
He was off by only one degree.
Neptune was not first recognized as a planet, but it was later determined with the benefit
of hindsight that other astronomers, beginning with Galileo Galilei in 1612, might have detected
it as well but failed to do so due to its sluggish motion relative to the background
stars.
After only 17 days, amateur astronomer William Lassell used a telescope he built to detect
Neptune's first moon.
However, in 1949, a second moon, Nereid, was identified.
At around the same period, the first moon was formally given the name Triton.
The first moon of Neptune wasn't named since everyone assumed it, like Earth, would only
have one moon.
The third moon of Neptune wasn't spotted until 1981, when scientists were already studying
the planet's rings.
The vast majority of Neptune's surface was hidden in darkness due of its great distance
from Earth until the flyby of Voyager 2.
However, now scientists have access to a revolutionary technology that will reveal Neptune's hidden
mysteries.
That's the James Webb Space Telescope, a record-breaking observatory costing $10 billion.
Neptune is about four times the size of Earth, with a radius of 15,299 miles (or 24,622 kilometers).
If Earth was the size of a nickel, then Neptune would be roughly the size of a baseball.
Neptune orbits the sun at a mean distance of 30 AU, where 1 AU is the average distance
from the sun to Earth.
This equates to a distance of 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers).
This indicates that it takes four hours for sunlight to reach Neptune.
A day on Neptune lasts around 16 hours since the planet rotates or spins once in less time.
A year on Neptune or the time required to complete an orbit around the sun is equivalent
to approximately 165 earth years.
Therefore, no one on Earth can observe a whole orbit of Neptune in their lifetime.
As a matter of fact, there are occasions when Neptune is farther from the sun than Pluto,
which is one of the solar system's many mysteries.
However, there is a simple explanation: Pluto's very eccentric oval-shaped orbit puts it inside
Neptune's orbit for 20 years every 248 Earth years.
It was between the years 1979 and 1999 when this phenomenon was last seen.
You may be wondering right about now that Pluto and Neptune will eventually collide,
but rest assured that this will never happen since Neptune makes three orbits of the sun
for every two that Pluto does.
Due to this pattern's repetition, the two bodies are kept at a safe distance from one
another.
Neptune, like Mars and Earth, has a 28-degree axial tilt with respect to the plane of its
orbit around the Sun.
Therefore, Neptune has four distinct seasons like Earth does, however each one lasts for
more than 40 years due to the planet's extremely long year.
Neptune is one of the celestial planets with rings, in addition to having moons.
The planet contains at least five rings, which are called Galle, Le Verrier, Lassell, Arago,
and Adams from closest to farthest from the planet.
According to experts, the rings are quite new and transient.
Thanks to the JWST, we will soon know significantly more about Neptune despite its great distance.
While the primary objective of the telescope is to study distant objects that tell the
tale of the origin of the universe, the JWST will also investigate the planets in our solar
system and is already achieving remarkable results in this regard.
Neptune appears deep blue in earlier Hubble space telescope pictures owing to methane
in its atmosphere.
The planet appears greyish white in near-infrared wavelengths acquired by Webb's primary imager
NIRCam, with ice clouds striping the surface.
“The rings are more reflective in the infrared,” McCaughrean said, “so they’re much easier
to see.”
According to Nasa, the image also reveals an "unusual brightness" at the summit of Neptune.
Astronomers have yet to see the planet's north pole since it is tilted away from Earth and
takes 164 years to circle the sun.
Webb also discovered seven of Neptune's fourteen known moons.
In a zoomed-out view, what seems to be a very brilliant spiky star is actually Triton, Neptune's
unusual, massive moon haloed by Webb's notorious diffraction spikes.
Triton, which is bigger than Pluto, seems brighter than Neptune due to its ice layer,
which reflects light.
Meanwhile, Neptune "absorbs most of the light falling on it," according to McCaughrean.
Triton is the only huge moon in the solar system that orbits its planet in the opposite
direction of its rotation, a process known as retrograde orbit.
Because Triton orbits Neptune in the opposite direction, it is thought to have been an object
from the neighboring Kuiper belt that got trapped in the planet's orbit.
The surface temperature of Triton is roughly -391 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 235 degrees
Celsius.
The moon's thin atmosphere has been detected multiple times from Earth and is becoming
warmer, but scientists are baffled as to why.
As astronomers scan the cosmos for additional planets like ours, they've discovered that
ice giants like Neptune and Uranus are the most prevalent in the Milky Way.
“By being able to look at these ones in great detail, we can key into our observations
of other ice giants,” McCaughrean explained.
So, what will the JWST investigate on Neptune?
One of them is a bizarre spectacle on Neptune in which diamonds practically rain down from
the sky.
With an atmosphere composed mostly of hydrogen, helium, and methane, as well as high temperature
and pressure, carbon atoms may combine to create diamonds and shower down onto this
planet.
Researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratories even re-created this unusual
weather phenomenon in a laboratory to show that diamonds really do rain on Neptune.
However, with the JWST, scientists will be able to do much more than replicate; they
will be able to investigate Neptune in order to learn more about diamonds.
How do these diamonds form on Neptune?
Scientists investigating Neptune have discovered that the planet's intense heat is a key factor
in the formation of diamonds in the atmosphere.
When they accumulate and get quite heavy, they begin to shower down on the planet, but
you can't venture out there to grab them owing to the conditions within the planet, no matter
how ambitious you are.
Scientists have already studied Neptune using the Hubble space telescope, but nothing compares
to what the JWST will uncover!
Hubble looks at the universe in every visible color using near-infrared and visible wavelengths,
whereas JWST will look at what's going on the planet in mid-infrared, which is a little
higher than visible and near-infrared wavelengths.
Let us now inform you about one of the many terrifying sights that await you on your trip
to Neptune, Wind.
On Earth, wind is useful for drying clothes and powering turbines, and when it grows to
hurricane proportions, it can wipe out everything in its path.
On Neptune, though, the wind swiftly turns destructive.
This planet has the fastest wind in the solar system, period.
Here, we're talking about winds that can reach over 2,100 kph.
How a frigid planet like Neptune can produce such high-velocity winds is a mystery that
has baffled astronomers for a long time.
Their best guess is that the low temperatures and fluid gas movement in the planet's atmosphere
minimize friction, making it simple to produce fast-moving winds.
While the deep blue color of Neptune is appealing, few people are aware of its origin.
Even more fascinating, the adjacent planet Uranus is also blue, but not as blue as Neptune.
Patrick Irwin, a planetary physicist at Oxford University, and his colleagues have come up
with an answer.
The two planets have a similar size and mass, but that's not all.
Using the Gemini north telescope in Hawaii, the Hubble space telescope, and other observations,
the researchers gained a thorough grasp of each planet's atmosphere.
Methane in their atmospheres gives Neptune and Uranus their distinctive blue color.
However, a crucial intermediate layer of methane haze on Uranus seemed to be twice as thick
as the one on Neptune, and it is the existence of this extra haze that caused the apparent
difference.
Both Uranus and Neptune would lose their haze as methane ice is pulled into the lower atmosphere,
where it would fall as methane snow.
However, Neptune's increased activity causes its snow to develop more often, resulting
in a thinner haze layer and a deeper blue color.
Irwin and his colleagues also attempt to explain Neptune's black patches, which are visible
on images of the planet.
These regions are both abundant and strange!
They are presumably generated by a darkening of the haze particles, which might be caused
by hydrogen sulfide ice evaporating.
More Webb studies of Triton and Neptune are planned over the coming year, which will reveal
much more of their secrets.
Let's hear what you think about Neptune and its mysteries in the comment section below