JWST’s dazzling view of Uranus

i haven't written anything on this old blog of mine for a very long time, but I was moved to post something when I saw the latest i age from the NASA-ESA James Webb Space Telescope, showing a spectacular view of the planet Uranus, viewed nearly pole-on, with an amazingly detailed view if its complex ring system, and its distinct light polar region against the blue of the planet. I think its the best image ever taken of that extremely distant plant, and it lso shows multiple distant galaxies as fuzzy patches, a handful of stars that can be identified by their spiky appearance (caused by diffraction in the telescope), and 14 of the 27 known moons it has -- Oberon, Titania, Umbriel, Juliet, Perdita, Rosalind, Puck, Belinda, Desdemona, Cressida, Ariel, Miranda, Bianca, and Portia. I couldn't tell you where they are, but they are basically the white dots close to the planet.

The version of this new image that have was released shows a wide view with several galaxies, but what I find really amazing to look at is this zoomed-in view that shows somuch detail on the planet itself and its rings. A very mysterious, very faraway planet, right here in our own solar system, that we know relatively little about -- including why, uniquely among solar system planets, it rotates sideways, instead of up and down. That's why we get to see it in this pole-on orientation, with its rings fully displayed and face-on.