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New York, Sep 22 (Ians) US-based space agency NASA has announced that its James Webb Space Telescope has captured the clearest view of Neptune’s rings in more than 30 years.

Most striking in Webb’s new image is the crisp view of the planet’s rings — some of which have not been detected since NASA’s Voyager 2 became the first spacecraft to observe Neptune during its flyby in 1989. In addition to several bright, narrow rings, the Webb image clearly shows Neptune’s fainter dust bands.

“It has been three decades since we last saw these faint, dusty rings, and this is the first time we’ve seen them in the infrared,” Heidi Hammel, a Neptune system expert and interdisciplinary scientist for Webb, said in a statement.

According to NASA, Webb’s extremely stable and precise image quality permits these very faint rings to be detected so close to Neptune.

Webb also...

New Delhi, Aug 24 (Ians) NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured new stunning images of Jupiter that will give scientists even more clues to the planet’s inner life.

With giant storms, powerful winds, auroras, and extreme temperature and pressure conditions, Jupiter has a lot going on.

In the standalone view of Jupiter, created from a composite of several images from Webb, auroras extend to high altitudes above both the northern and southern poles of Jupiter.

The auroras shine in a filter that is mapped to redder colours, which also highlights light reflected from lower clouds and upper hazes, NASA said in a statement.

A different filter, mapped to yellows and greens, shows hazes swirling around the northern and southern poles. A third filter, mapped to blues, showcases light that is reflected from a deeper main cloud.

“We hadn’t really expected it to be this good, to be honest.