The James Webb Space Telescope Captures Incredible Images of Neptune

The world’s largest and most powerful space telescope continues to provide stunning images and insights into our universe. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has shown us astounding detail of distant galaxies and our planetary neighbors. The most recent images released show Neptune, the farthest known planet in our solar system, in an incredible new light. Not only are the images incredible, but they are the clearest photos of Neptune’s rings and 14 moons humanity has seen to date. Neptune’s rings were first and last captured 33 years ago when their discovery was confirmed in footage from NASA’s Voyager 2 (1989). That probe also discovered 5 new moons, 4 new rings and a “Great Dark Spot.”

_{Image of Neptune’s rings from Voyager 2 which observed the planet from June – August 1989. NASA/ JPL}
_{Voyager 2 image of Neptune (1989). NASA/ JPL}

Here’s what JWST has shown us of Neptune and it’s rings:

_{NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI}
_{Observations of Neptune. Voyager: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Hubble: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL team.
Webb: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI}

“One of the things that made the Voyager planetary encounters different from missions today is that there was no internet that would have allowed the whole team and the whole world to see the pictures at the same time,” Ed Stone, a professor of physics at Caltech and Voyager’s project scientist has previously observed. How amazing is it that we are able to peer into space with more detail than ever before, and simply view photos of the wonders of our universe online?

Here are other images of planets JWST has captured thus far:

_{Jupiter as captured by JWST. NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Ricardo Hueso (UPV/EHU) and Judy Schmidt.}
_{JWST’s first image of Mars. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Mars JWST/GTO team}