Webb shares new image of Uranus

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has taken a stunning image of the Solar System’s other ice giant, the planet Uranus. The new image features dramatic rings as well as bright features in the planet’s atmosphere. The new Webb data of Uranus offer exquisite sensitivity, revealing the faintest dusty rings.

The seventh planet from the Sun, Uranus is strange: it rotates on its side, at a nearly 90-degree angle from the plane of its orbit. This causes unusual seasons since the planet’s poles experience 42 years of constant sunlight and 42 years of complete darkness (Uranus takes 84 years to orbit the Sun). Currently, it is late spring at the northern pole, which is on the right side of this image; Uranus’s northern summer will be in 2028.