FIRST FROM JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE HOW TO

The Webb space telescope's NIRCam camera caught the light that Mars emits at longer wavelengths of infrared as it loses heat.

These features include the Huygens Crater, a near 280-mile-wide (450 kilometers) impact crater, and dark volcanic rock in the Syrtis Major Planum. The short wavelength image is dominated by reflected sunlight and shows details of the Martian surface that resemble features seen in visible light. The first images of Mars taken by the JWST show an area in the eastern hemisphere of the planet in two different wavelengths of light. The JWST was able to capture images and spectra with the spatial resolution that astronomers need to study short-term phenomena like Martian weather patterns, dust storms, and even changes caused by the planet's seasons.Īdditionally, the Webb telescope could capture events that happen at different times throughout the Martian day - during the daytime, at sunset and during the night - in a single observation. We can see the whole planet,' Liuzzi continued. 'We can see this incredible resolution, we have the diffraction limit of a space telescope in the infrared, which is fantastic.

This meant measuring only some of the light that reached JWST's detectors and then applying special methods to analyze the collected data. To prevent the bright infrared light from Mars from blinding the JWST's instruments, scientists used very short exposures to observe the Red Planet.

FIRST FROM JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE HOW TO

'Mars is so bright, that the challenge is how to see it,' NASA Planetary Systems Laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Center scientist and lead investigator Giuliano Liuzzi said in an EPSC press conference to mark the release of the images.

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