James Webb Space Telescope captures strikingly crisp images of Neptune and its rings [View all]

[nitpicker]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/21/world/neptune-james-webb-space-telescope-new-images-scn/index.html

James Webb Space Telescope captures strikingly crisp images of Neptune and its rings

(CNN)New images released Wednesday from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope are revealing Neptune, and the planet's hard-to-detect rings, in a fresh light.

"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," said Heidi Hammel, a Neptune expert and interdisciplinary scientist on the Webb project, in a news release.

In addition to several crisp, narrow rings, the Webb images show Neptune's fainter dust bands. Some of the rings haven't been observed since NASA's Voyager 2 got the first photographic proof of the existence of Neptune's rings during its flyby in 1989.
(snip)

In the new images, Neptune looks white, as opposed to the typical blue appearance it has in views captured at visible wavelengths of light. This is because gaseous methane, part of the planet's chemical makeup, doesn't appear blue to Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam).
(snip)