James Webb looks at Mars and captures it in infrared light in his first images.

brand new space telescope James Webb captured his first images and spectra Mars September 5, 2022 – A unique perspective of the red planet with its infrared sensitivity.

Almost 1.5 million kilometers away at the Lagrange point 2 (L2) of the Sun and Earth, Webb’s unique observation post offers a view of the Earth’s observed disk. Mars (part of the sunlit side facing the telescope).

As a result, James Webb can capture images and spectra with the spectral resolution needed to study short-term phenomena such as dust storms, weather patterns, seasonal changes and, in a single observation, processes occurring at different times (during the day, at sunset and sunrise). night) of the Martian day.

too much light!

Because the Red Planet is so close, it is one of the brightest objects in the night sky in terms of visible light (which the human eye can see) and infrared light, which Webb has to detect. This poses special challenges for the observatory, which was built to detect very faint light from the most distant galaxies in the universe.

tools James Webb so sensitive that without special methods of observation, bright infrared light from Mars it blinds and causes a phenomenon known as “detector saturation”. Astronomers have adapted to extreme brightness Mars using very fast shutter speeds, measuring only a fraction of the light that hits the detectors, and applying special data analysis techniques.

This is what Mars looks like in infrared light

The first images of James Webb from Mars, taken by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), they show an area of ​​the planet’s eastern hemisphere in two different wavelengths or colors of infrared light. This image shows a surface reference map POT and the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) on the left, with the two fields of view of the Webb NIRCam instrument superimposed. Near infrared images are shown on the right.

Webb’s first near-infrared spectrum Marsimage taken with the Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) demonstrates the telescope’s ability to study the red planet using spectroscopy, the ESA said in a statement.

While the images Mars show integrated differences in brightness over a large number of wavelengths from place to place across the planet on a given day and time, the spectrum shows subtle differences in brightness between hundreds of different wavelengths that are characteristic of the planet as well as everything. Astronomers will analyze features of the spectrum to gather additional information about the planet’s surface and atmosphere.

In the future, Webb will use this spectroscopic and imaging data to study regional differences across the planet and look for trace particles in the atmosphere, including methane and hydrogen chloride.

These observations for Mars were taken as part of the Solar System Webb Cycle 1 Guaranteed Time Observation (GTO) program led by Heidi Hummel of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA). (According to Europe Press)

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