Webb’s near-infrared camera took the picture of Saturn on June 25. Scientists added orange color to the monochrome picture to produce the image released Friday.
The picture shows Saturn’s iconic icy rings shining around the disk of the gas giant, which appears much darker in near-infrared due to the absorption of sunlight by methane particles suspended high in the planet’s atmosphere.
Webb pointed its 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) gold-coated mirror toward Saturn as part of an observing program to test the telescope’s ability to detect faint moons. The observations included several deep exposures of Saturn that astronomers are still analyzing to probe the planet’s fainter rings and search for undiscovered moons.
There are 146 known moons in orbit around Saturn, ranging in size from larger than the planet Mercury to the size of a sports arena, more than any other planet in the solar system, according to NASA.
via: ArsTechnica
