NASA releases new images of Uranus, offering glimpse of one rarely seen feature

Stunning new images released by NASA on Monday detailed new images of Uranus, revealing a stunning look at its glowing rings and one rarely seen feature.

The photos, taken by NASA’s high-power James Webb Space Telescope, captured the icy planet along with its multiple inner and outer rings, nine of its 27 known moons and a seasonal polar cap.

The new pictures offer a rare glimpse of the “elusive” Zeta ring, an extremely faint and diffuse ring closest to the planet — shown in a reddish brown.

The Webb telescope also grabbed snapshots of atmospheric happenings on the freezing planet, including Uranus’ seasonal north polar cloud cap and several storms near it.

Uranus, a glowing blue and white sphere with several blue rings surrounding it captured in space 3 The images of Uranus were captured by the high-power James Webb Space Telescope. NASA Uranus with labeled moons and stars in wide view captured by Webb space telescope 3 The images offer a rarely seen glimpse of Uranus’ faint, inner Zeta ring and captured several of the planet’s moons. NASA The polar cap becomes more pronounced when Uranus’ pole shifts toward the sun as it approaches solstice and receives more sunlight. The planet’s next solstice is in 2028.

Uranus has the most extreme seasons in the solar system because it spins on its side at a tilt of about 98 degrees, according to NASA. While the sun shines over one pole, the other pole is plunged into a dark, 21-year-long winter.

“With Webb’s unparalleled infrared resolution and sensitivity, astronomers now see Uranus and its unique features with groundbreaking new clarity,” NASA said. “These details, especially of the close-in Zeta ring, will be invaluable to planning any future missions to Uranus.”

The discoverer of Uranus (in 1781) wanted to call it “George’s Star” after King George III (buttering up a patron in 1780s) ... a generation or two later, the name Uranus (from Ouranous, a Roman deity) was adopted — some had advocated it be named after its discoverer herschel, but this did not prevail. I am pretty certain there would be no end of jokes about George’s Star too, so the innocent planet was doomed to be the butt of jokes anyway.

Oddly, and it was not known until well after discovery, Uranus is unlike all the other planets, its rotational axis is in the plane of the solar system so its “seasons” are 21 years long or one quarter of its orbital period of 84 years. We often see it on its side, with its brighter moons circling around rather than moving side to side and periodically disappearing behind the planet as is the case with Jupiter and Saturn. So for most of a 42-year interval we are looking at the south polar region of Uranus and then after a brief interval of looking at its equator at right angles, we start a 42-year interval of looking at its north polar region.

It should also be mentioned that the designation “clouds” should read “brighter clouds” because all we are seeing are clouds, Uranus is an earth-sized solid object enveloped in a huge cloud of methane and other gases about four times as big as the solid interior. Neptune is similar in that regard, and is just a bit more massive.

I discovered something very odd about the masses of the four gas giants. If you add the mass of Uranus to Neptune and call that total one unit, then Saturn represents three units and Jupiter ten units. This is the same ratio as the formula for methane, Ch4 (taking an isotope of carbon, the one used for carbon dating, C=12 is the dominant one).

A hidden signature of the artist-creator, perhaps?

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