The Webb telescope has captured an amazing new image of Uranus’ rings.
- The James Webb Space Telescope captured a new amazing image of Uranus, revealing almost all of its faint dusty rings.

According to NASA, the image demonstrates the telescope’s high sensitivity because the fainter rings have previously only been recorded by the Voyager 2 spacecraft and the W.M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaii.
Uranus has 13 known rings, 11 of which can seen in the new Webb image. The main rings are nine, while the remaining two are more difficult to obtain. Due to their dusty makeup and not discovered until the flyby of the Voyager 2 mission in 1986. Two other, faint outer rings not visible in this image found in 2007 from Hubble Space Telescope images. And researchers hope Webb can photograph them in the future.
Dr. Naomi Rowe-Gurney’s statement

“A planet’s ring system tells us a lot about its origins and formation,” said Dr. Naomi Rowe-Gurney, a postdoctoral research scientist. Solar system ambassador for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“With its sideways tilt and lack of internal heat. Uranus is such a strange world that any information we may discover about its history is extremely important.”
Future Webb images, according to scientists, will be able to capture all 13 rings. Rowe-Gurney also anticipates that the telescope will provide more information about Uranus. Atmospheric structure, allowing scientists to gain a greater understanding of this unusual gas giant.
The powerful Near-Infrared Camera, or NIRCam, on board the space observatory is capable of identifying infrared rays that would otherwise be invisible to scientists.
“We have never had a telescope of this size that looks in the infrared light. So the JWST allows us to look at Uranus. And Neptune in a completely new way,” Rowe-Gurney said. “The infrared can reveal new depths and includes that are hard to see from below. Due to the atmosphere and invisible to visible-light telescopes like Hubble.”
