NASA releases stunning new images of Jupiter from the James Webb Space Telescope and a haunting audio clip taken from a black hole.
In Pasadena, more pictures came in from the Voyager spacecraft. They show something not known before. That Jupiter has a ring around it. Like Saturn. The ring is composed of space debris and is several miles thick.
The last thing before we go tonight. Fifth rock from the Sun. Earth got you down? Me too. Well, let’s venture into the cosmos for a breather. Back in 1979, the Voyager space probes began sending pictures of Jupiter back to earth. Scientists were surprised to find moons of Fire and Ice and then rings around the planet. Now, and what NASA called Giant news from the giant planet, the James Webb Telescope is sending back much more detailed images. Camera with three specialized infrared filters was used to create these images. NASA says that since in a red light is invisible to the human eye, the light has been mapped onto the visible spectrum. And, according to one planetary astronomer, “We’ve never seen Jupiter like this. It’s all quite incredible that it really expected it to be this good, to be honest.” That’s also tweeted this label diversion, suggesting we check out the bright waves, swirls, and vortexes in Jupiter’s atmosphere, as well as the dark ring system 1 million times fainter than the planet. Two moons of Jupiter, including one that’s only about 12 miles across. They are on the left. The second photo was created from a composite of several images. The auroras on both the northern and southern poles are visible, as well as the planet’s great red spot seen here in white. NASA says that spot is actually a storm so big it could swallow Earth. Yikes!
Then there’s the common misconception that there is no sound in space. Turns out, that’s because most of space is a vacuum. But over the weekend, NASA released remixed sounds from a black hole 240 million light years away. Take a listen: <eerie sounds>
And with that, I think I am ready to head back to Earth.