The rings of Neptune captured by James Webb Space Telescope after three decades

                         Rings of Neptune

Rings of Neptune!! Yes, you heard it correctly. We are all so familiar with the rings of Saturn, the countless small particles of different shapes and sizes that orbit around Saturn, giving a ring-like look. But very rarely do we find anybody speaking about the rings of Neptune. This is exactly what the James Webb space telescope has spotted. 

But this is not the first time that these rings have been visible to us. We knew about these rings earlier, but this is the first time we have received such a clear and crisp image of the rings of Neptune and this spotting has been possible after 30 years. 

                     James Webb Space Telescope

Neptune has always fascinated researchers since its discovery on 23rd September 1846 by Johann Galle. It is the only planet in the solar system which was discovered on the basis of mathematical prediction rather than by empirical observation. 

Alexis Bouvard observed that there were unexpected changes in the orbit of Uranus. From this, he hypothesized that the orbit of Uranus was subject to gravitational perturbations of an unknown planet, which was later found to be Neptune.

In 1989 Nasa's Voyager II spacecraft did a flyby past Neptune and during this time it captured the planet's rings. After that Voyager II continued its journey in interstellar space beyond the solar system, so no more images of these rings could be captured. 

The recent images captured by the Webb show Neptune's fainter dust bands in addition to several bright, narrow rings. It should be noted that Neptune is located 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth and its orbits are located in the remote darker regions of the solar system. Moreover, due to its chemical composition, it is generally referred to as an ice giant, in contrast to the gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn.

           

                    Hubble Space Telescope

The images of Neptune captured by the Hubble space telescope (images at visible wavelength) have a bluish tinge due to the presence of small amounts of gaseous methane. But the James Webb space telescope captured Neptune in its near-infrared range which gave the planet a purple tinge instead of blue. 

Apart from these, Webb has also captured 7 out of 14 moons of Neptune. There is a very bright point seen in the image captured by the Webb, which is Neptune's large and unusual moon Triton (it orbits Neptune in a strange backward orbit). Triton reflects more than 70% of the sunlight that is incident on it. Moreover, due to methane absorption, the planet's atmosphere is darkened at near-infrared wavelengths. The combined effect is that Triton quite easily outshines Neptune in the image. The image from Webb has also revealed a continuous band of high-latitude clouds surrounding the planet, which was never seen before.

By

Prabir Rudra