{"id":23559,"date":"2025-04-03T23:22:52","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T20:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=23559"},"modified":"2025-04-03T23:22:52","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T20:22:52","slug":"the-james-webb-telescope-recorded-neptunes-aurora-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=23559","title":{"rendered":"The James Webb Telescope recorded Neptune’s aurora for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first-ever aurora on Neptune, confirming a phenomenon that until now we only had hints about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Auroras, both on Earth and other planets, are caused by solar particles that get trapped in the planet\u2019s magnetic field and eventually collide with atoms in the atmosphere. The energy released in these collisions creates flashes whose color depends on the type of atom that was hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Auroras have long been detected on Jupiter, Neptune, and Uranus, but not on Neptune, since even the Hubble Space Telescope was unable to record the glow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first indications of the presence of auroras in Poseidon came in 1989 thanks to the Voyager 2 mission. The suspicions are only now being confirmed by the James Webb, which recorded the celestial lights thanks to its infrared vision.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Left, Neptune in a Hubble image. On the right, the same image combined with James Webb observations. The aurora appears in green. The white spots are clouds (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Heidi Hammel (AURA), Henrik Melin (Northumbria University), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Stefanie Milam (NASA-GSFC)}<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The phenomenon is quite different on Neptune than on Earth, where the aurora occurs at the poles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the last planet in the Solar System, the aurora occurs at mid-latitudes, as the planet’s magnetic field is tilted 47 degrees relative to its axis of rotation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that the magnetic poles where the aurora occurs are in completely different positions than the north and south poles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the new observations, which are presented in the journal Nature Astronomy, Neptune’s aurora has been difficult to detect until now because it is unusually faint due to the low temperatures in the planet’s upper atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The James Webb data even indicate that the temperature of the upper atmosphere has dropped by hundreds of degrees since the previous estimate in 1989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further observations by James Webb could shed light on the causes of this dramatic drop. They could also provide new evidence for the origin of the magnetic field, or even explain why it is so tilted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first-ever aurora on Neptune, confirming a phenomenon that until now we only had hints about. Auroras,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1808],"tags":[3276,6757],"class_list":["post-23559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-space","tag-james-webb-space-telescope","tag-neptune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23562,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23559\/revisions\/23562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}