4 ms·
Uranus (NIRCam Image)
- jmclnx 4y agoNice, and the rings came out great
- skybrian 4y agoI’m wondering why it doesn’t look very round, like the picture is somehow distorted? For the rings, I think it’s that a picture of a ringed planet is usually rotated ninety degrees so the longer axis points sideways.
- krylon 4y agoMaybe it's an optical illusion? When I look closely, the planet looks pretty round to me. The rings around it or the color gradient of the planet may affect the perception of its shape.
- ProAm 4y agoThe angle of the rings are making it appear not round, it's a circle. I do not understand your comment about the rings? Uranus is tilted almost 90 degrees off typical axis
- tejtm 4y agoEvidence of extreme rearrangement in early solar system history, it is spinning sideways as compared to the ecliptic (the plane the solar system is on). There is suspicion the planets were not always in the same order they are in today.
- SoftTalker 4y agoI think it's more than "suspicion"
- MoSattler 4y agowhere can I read more about this?
- vikingerik 4y agoHere, and there are several related articles and theories linked from it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping-Jupiter_scenario https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping-Jupiter_scenario
- WakoMan12 4y ago[flagged]
- Sharlin 4y agoPictures of ringed planets are not usually rotated any more than this picture is. (Solar system pictures are typically rotated so that "up" is perpendicular to the ecliptic.) It's just that Saturn's (and Neptune's) axial tilt is fairly moderate (27° and 28° respectively) while Uranus is unique in having a tilt of almost 100°.
- vikingerik 4y agoThe planet doesn't look round for two reasons. One is that the rings aren't circular in the picture, because they're slightly oblique to the viewpoint, but your brain expects to see round circles, so it compensates by distorting your perception of the planet relative to the rings. Two is the planet actually isn't round, because of its equatorial bulge, which in this image is slightly more in the up-down direction than left-right, because of the obliquity of the viewpoint. This effect is in the same direction as the rings perception effect and stacks with it.
- uhtred 4y agoit's nice to see the rings around uranus in such detail
- deafpolygon 4y agoMy reaction to this comment; https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/futurama-fry-not-sure-if/ https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/futurama-fry-not-sure-if/
- junon 4y agoIncredible. It feels me with so much joy that JWT has been such a resounding success - I was so afraid the mission would fail somehow. The images we've gotten have changed the entire landscape.
- gnatman 4y agoAwesome pic- looks like a 70s sci-fi paperback cover
- nikbackm 4y agoDo these images have any scientific use?
- pacetherace 4y agoTelescope time for JWST is allocated based on scientific proposals. So yes there is to be some obvious scientific justification for observation of Uranus. This is the news release associated with these images. https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2023/news-2023-117?news=true https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2023/news-2...
- zabzonk 4y agodoes learning any more details about the universe ever have any "scientific use"?
- vkou 4y agoOnce image data is gathered, it gets analyzed. That's the scientific use. Then, at some point, people assign photogenic false-color filters to that data, and do a press release.
- Sharlin 4y agoJWST observation calendar is so tightly booked (demand vastly exceeds supply) that there's essentially no time to waste on anything that has low or no scientific value. Pretty pictures for public outreach are just a nice side effect.