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The James Webb Space Telescope just mapped auroras on Uranus in 3D for the 1st time, and scientists are thrilled

Space·Julian Dossett·6 months ago
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James Webb Space Telescope data created a fascinating timelapse video of Uranus spinning in space. (Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, STScI, P. Tiranti, H. Melin, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)) An international team of researchers has uncovered new insights into the upper atmosphere of Uranus, where ions swirling above the ice giant planet's clouds meet the magnetic field surrounding the world. "Uranus's magnetosphere is one of the strangest in the solar system," Paola Tiranti, a researcher at Northumbria University in the U.K., said in a statement . "It's tilted and offset from the planet's rotation axis, which means its auroras sweep across the surface in complex ways." Using the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument aboard the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the team studied Uranus as it rotated.…

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