In the image, Saturn itself appears extremely dark due to the near-total absorption of sunlight by methane gas. The rings, however, remain bright, creating the “unusual appearance” of the planet in this photo, according to NASA.
The image was taken with Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera, known as NIRCam, as part of a Webb program that involves several exceptionally deep exposures of Saturn, according to NASA. These exposures test Webb’s ability to spot faint moons around the planet and its rings, since any newly discovered moons could help scientists better understand Saturn’s present and past systems.
Unexpectedly, “the large, diffuse structures in the northern hemisphere do not follow the planet’s lines of latitude, so this image is lacking the familiar striped appearance that is typically seen from Saturn’s deeper atmospheric layers,” according to NASA. Differences in the looks of Saturn’s northern and southern poles are normal, according to NASA, as the northern region experiences summertime while the southern hemisphere is exiting winter darkness. But the darker-than-usual appearance of the northern hemisphere could be from “an unknown seasonal process affecting polar aerosols in particular,” NASA says.
These new observations from the Webb telescope “are just a hint at what this observatory will add to Saturn’s story in the coming years,” NASA says, “as the science team delves deep into the data to prepare peer-reviewed results.”
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