Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
Time lapse of @Northrop Grumman Cygnus Capsule Capture By Canadarm2
-
Similar Topics
-
By Space Force
128 Air Force Reserve Professionals who will transfer into the Space Force in a full-time capacity.
View the full article
-
By NASA
6 Min Read NASA’s Webb Captures Neptune’s Auroras For First Time
At the left, an enhanced-color image of Neptune from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. At the right, that image is combined with data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Heidi Hammel (AURA), Henrik Melin (Northumbria University), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Stefanie Milam (NASA-GSFC) Long-sought auroral glow finally emerges under Webb’s powerful gaze
For the first time, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured bright auroral activity on Neptune. Auroras occur when energetic particles, often originating from the Sun, become trapped in a planet’s magnetic field and eventually strike the upper atmosphere. The energy released during these collisions creates the signature glow.
In the past, astronomers have seen tantalizing hints of auroral activity on Neptune, for example, in the flyby of NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1989. However, imaging and confirming the auroras on Neptune has long evaded astronomers despite successful detections on Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. Neptune was the missing piece of the puzzle when it came to detecting auroras on the giant planets of our solar system.
“Turns out, actually imaging the auroral activity on Neptune was only possible with Webb’s near-infrared sensitivity,” said lead author Henrik Melin of Northumbria University, who conducted the research while at the University of Leicester. “It was so stunning to not just see the auroras, but the detail and clarity of the signature really shocked me.”
The data was obtained in June 2023 using Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph. In addition to the image of the planet, astronomers obtained a spectrum to characterize the composition and measure the temperature of the planet’s upper atmosphere (the ionosphere). For the first time, they found an extremely prominent emission line signifying the presence of the trihydrogen cation (H3+), which can be created in auroras. In the Webb images of Neptune, the glowing aurora appears as splotches represented in cyan.
Image A:
Neptune’s Auroras – Hubble and Webb
At the left, an enhanced-color image of Neptune from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. At the right, that image is combined with data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The cyan splotches, which represent auroral activity, and white clouds, are data from Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), overlayed on top of the full image of the planet from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Heidi Hammel (AURA), Henrik Melin (Northumbria University), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Stefanie Milam (NASA-GSFC) “H3+ has a been a clear signifier on all the gas giants — Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus — of auroral activity, and we expected to see the same on Neptune as we investigated the planet over the years with the best ground-based facilities available,” explained Heidi Hammel of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Webb interdisciplinary scientist and leader of the Guaranteed Time Observation program for the Solar System in which the data were obtained. “Only with a machine like Webb have we finally gotten that confirmation.”
The auroral activity seen on Neptune is also noticeably different from what we are accustomed to seeing here on Earth, or even Jupiter or Saturn. Instead of being confined to the planet’s northern and southern poles, Neptune’s auroras are located at the planet’s geographic mid-latitudes — think where South America is located on Earth.
This is due to the strange nature of Neptune’s magnetic field, originally discovered by Voyager 2 in 1989 which is tilted by 47 degrees from the planet’s rotation axis. Since auroral activity is based where the magnetic fields converge into the planet’s atmosphere, Neptune’s auroras are far from its rotational poles.
The ground-breaking detection of Neptune’s auroras will help us understand how Neptune’s magnetic field interacts with particles that stream out from the Sun to the distant reaches of our solar system, a totally new window in ice giant atmospheric science.
From the Webb observations, the team also measured the temperature of the top of Neptune’s atmosphere for the first time since Voyager 2’s flyby. The results hint at why Neptune’s auroras remained hidden from astronomers for so long.
“I was astonished — Neptune’s upper atmosphere has cooled by several hundreds of degrees,” Melin said. “In fact, the temperature in 2023 was just over half of that in 1989.”
Through the years, astronomers have predicted the intensity of Neptune’s auroras based on the temperature recorded by Voyager 2. A substantially colder temperature would result in much fainter auroras. This cold temperature is likely the reason that Neptune’s auroras have remained undetected for so long. The dramatic cooling also suggests that this region of the atmosphere can change greatly even though the planet sits over 30 times farther from the Sun compared to Earth.
Equipped with these new findings, astronomers now hope to study Neptune with Webb over a full solar cycle, an 11-year period of activity driven by the Sun’s magnetic field. Results could provide insights into the origin of Neptune’s bizarre magnetic field, and even explain why it’s so tilted.
“As we look ahead and dream of future missions to Uranus and Neptune, we now know how important it will be to have instruments tuned to the wavelengths of infrared light to continue to study the auroras,” added Leigh Fletcher of Leicester University, co-author on the paper. “This observatory has finally opened the window onto this last, previously hidden ionosphere of the giant planets.”
These observations, led by Fletcher, were taken as part of Hammel’s Guaranteed Time Observation program 1249. The team’s results have been published in Nature Astronomy.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
Downloads
Click any image to open a larger version.
View/Download all image products at all resolutions for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Read the research results published in Nature Astronomy.
Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Hannah Braun- hbraun@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Science
Henrik Melin (Northumbria University)
Related Information
View more: Webb images of Neptune
Watch: Visualization of Neptune’s tilted magnetic axis
Learn more : about Neptune
More Webb News
More Webb Images
Webb Science Themes
Webb Mission Page
Related For Kids
About Neptune
About the Solar System
What is the Webb Telescope?
SpacePlace for Kids
En Español
Ciencia de la NASA
NASA en español
Space Place para niños
Keep Exploring Related Topics
James Webb Space Telescope
Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the…
Neptune
Neptune Stories
Our Solar System
Share
Details
Last Updated Mar 25, 2025 Editor Stephen Sabia Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Astrophysics Goddard Space Flight Center Neptune Planetary Science Planets Science & Research The Solar System View the full article
-
By European Space Agency
Image: ESA's Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space at NASA's Kennedy Space Center View the full article
-
By NASA
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft is pictured in the grips of the Canadarm2 robotic arm shortly after its capture Credit: NASA After delivering more than 8,200 pounds of supplies, scientific investigations, commercial products, hardware, and other cargo to the orbiting laboratory for NASA and its international partners, Northrop Grumman’s uncrewed Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled to depart the International Space Station on Friday, March 28.
Watch NASA’s live coverage of undocking and departure at 6:30 a.m. EDT on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
This mission was the company’s 21st commercial resupply mission to the space station for NASA.
Flight controllers on the ground will send commands for the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach Cygnus from the Unity module’s Earth-facing port, then maneuver the spacecraft into position for release at 6:55 a.m. NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers will monitor Cygnus’ systems upon its departure from the space station.
Cygnus – filled with trash packed by the station crew – will be commanded to deorbit on Sunday, March 30, setting up a re-entry where the spacecraft will safely burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
The Northrop Grumman spacecraft arrived at the space station Aug. 6, 2024, following launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Get breaking news, images, and features from the space station on the station blog, Instagram, Facebook, and X.
Learn more about Cygnus’ mission and the International Space Station at:
https://www.nasa.gov/station
-end-
Julian Coltre / Josh Finch
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
julian.n.coltre@nasa.gov / joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated Mar 21, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
International Space Station (ISS) Humans in Space Johnson Space Center NASA Headquarters
View the full article
-
By NASA
This compressed, resolution-limited gif shows the view of lunar sunset from one of the six Stereo Cameras for Lunar-Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS) 1.1 cameras on Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander, which operated on the Moon’s surface for a little more than 14 days and stopped, as anticipated, a few hours into lunar night. The bright, swirly light moving across the surface on the top right of the image is sunlight reflecting off the lander. Images taken by SCALPSS 1.1 during Blue Ghost’s descent and landing, as well as images from the surface during the long lunar day, will help researchers better understand the effects of a lander’s engine plumes on the lunar soil, or regolith. The instrument collected almost 9000 images and returned 10 GB of data. This data is important as trips to the Moon increase and the number of payloads touching down in proximity to one another grows. The SCALPSS 1.1 project is funded by the Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Game Changing Development program. SCALPSS was developed at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, with support from Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.NASA/Olivia TyrrellView the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.