The First Mars Photo By James Webb Has Been Shared

The James Webb Space Telescope, which was sent into space at the end of last year and started to serve functionally at the beginning of this summer, presented one of the most anticipated images today. Mars was imaged by James Webb, with the collaboration of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

The Mars photo shared on the James Webb Space Telescope website allowed us to see the planet with a different eye. On the other hand, the shared Mars photo was not as detailed as you imagined.

Mars was too bright for James Webb, so the entire planet could not be captured clearly

The image on the left in the above photo was a reference image created with data previously acquired with the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) equipment. The two photos on the right were obtained with James Webb’s NIRCam equipment. The top photo shows the light reflected from the planet and shows features such as craters and dust layers on the planet’s surface. The photo below shows the diffused light that reveals the latitude and time of day and temperature differences, and the darkening of the Hellas Basin caused by atmospheric effects.

Why can’t James Webb clearly draw Mars and the other planets in our system?

Obtaining the above photo was quite difficult due to the planet’s proximity to the telescope and the Sun. Developed to capture even the smallest light source in space, James Webb naturally included equipment that was extremely sensitive to light. To image Mars, whose extreme brightness could damage equipment for James Webb, scientists measured just a fraction of the light hitting the telescope’s detectors using very short exposures, and adjusted to Mars’ extreme brightness with special data analysis techniques. The result was the image we saw above, which reveals the eastern hemisphere of Mars.

The planets in our Solar System will also not be able to be drawn clearly by James Webb, since they are close to a light source and reflect too much light. For a more detailed explanation on this topic, you can check out our content below: