![]() ![]() Photo courtesy of NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Mars JWST/GTO team James Webb Space Telescope's first near-infrared spectrum of Mars They also show variations in temperature at different latitudes and times of day, revealing warm regions where the Sun was almost directly overhead, as well as cooler areas in the northern hemisphere and near Mars’ polar regions. The images depict surface features such as dust layers, craters and dark spots, including the Hellas Basin, Syrtis Major and Huygens Crater. The telescope’s first images of Mars, captured using its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) at two different wavelengths, show an area of the planet’s eastern hemisphere. ![]() “The fact that, when we opened the images and when we got the spectra, we actually could get the data and they were good data, it was exciting,” says Sara Faggi, an astrophysicist working on the project for NASA, to New Scientist ’s Alex Wilkins. ![]() To get around this issue, scientists used very short exposures and only measured some of the light that reached Webb’s instruments. Webb’s images provide insights that help complement data gathered by the other telescopes, rovers and orbiters that are studying Mars.īecause Mars is so close and so bright-and because Webb is so sensitive-researchers had to employ special observing techniques to avoid what’s known as detector saturation, a phenomenon caused by too much infrared light that ‘blinds’ the sensors. From its vantage point, Webb can at once observe Martian processes that occur at various times of day, and it will help researchers study short-term phenomena like seasonal changes, weather and dust storms, per NASA. Webb, which launched in December 2021 and is located roughly one million miles away from Earth (1.6 million kilometers), was able to capture the sunlit side of the Red Planet that was facing the telescope. The telescope captured its first images and spectra of the Red Planet on September 5, according to NASA, which is collaborating with scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) on the James Webb project. But with a few careful adjustments, the high-tech telescope was recently able to turn its attention toward a much closer and brighter object in the night sky: Mars. Scientists designed the James Webb Space Telescope to be able to detect faint light from distant parts of the universe. ![]()
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