The James Webb Space Telescope, which NASA launched into space on December 25, 2021, recently shared the first color photos with the world. Of course, these images were not actually the first images shot with Webb. The James Webb Telescope took a series of test images before sending these images. NASA released some of those images today.
The new images from the James Webb Space Telescope are photos of Jupiter taken during the test phase before the first color images. The photos NASA shared were photos taken during testing of Webb’s equipment. A color photograph of Jupiter was not included in the photographs.
Jupiter photos released by NASA:
The first photo we see above was taken by James Webb’s NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) tool with a 2.12 micron filter. In the infrared image, we can see the famous circular spot appearing brightly along with the lines surrounding Jupiter. Of course, let us remind you that this stain is a storm that has been going on for a very long time and is big enough to swallow the Earth. To the left of Jupiter is the Europa moon, which we are still investigating with great interest.
In the two images above, we can see Jupiter and Europa, as well as the planet’s moons Thebe and Metis. The left image shows the short wavelength measurement, while the right image shows the long wavelength. Taken with NIRCam’s 2.12 micron filter, the right image was also acquired using a 3.23 micron filter. Left image Finally, the image below was taken with a 3.23 micron filter.
James Webb also managed to capture the rings of Jupiter. It also proved that it can image faint objects next to bright objects.
A moving object was also tracked in space:
The James Webb Space Telescope also demonstrated its ability to track moving objects during testing. In the motion picture above, Webb can be seen focusing and following the asteroid 6481 Tenzing.
So why do these photos look different and poor quality from previous Jupiter photos?
The photos you see above were taken by the Juno spacecraft, which was launched into Jupiter orbit in 2011. So why couldn’t James Webb take such ‘quality’ photos? This is because James Webb was developed to capture as much light as possible, and actually fulfills his mission. In fact, we briefly explained this situation in our article below:
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