The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which was launched in 2021, has recently made headlines for capturing a high-resolution image of the planet Uranus and its rings.
Understanding Uranus
An ice giant, Uranus boasts an interior largely comprised of icy materials such as water, methane, and ammonia. This results in a hot, dense fluid that accounts for most of the planet’s mass. One fascinating aspect of Uranus is its rotation. The planet spins on its side at a nearly 90-degree angle from the plane of its orbit, resulting in extreme seasons and extended periods of sunlight or darkness.
Uranus is one of only two planets in our solar system—Venus being the second—that rotate in a clockwise direction. In terms of its orbit around the sun, Uranus takes approximately 84 Earth years to complete one full rotation.
A total of 13 rings circle Uranus, with 11 of them visible in the image captured by the JWST. Many of these rings are bright and closely spaced, giving the impression of a larger ring. Uranus also boasts 27 known moons.
Unique to Uranus is a polar cap that appears during summer and disappears in autumn—a phenomenon that scientists hope to better understand through the data provided by the JWST.
Previous Space Visits to Uranus
In 1986, NASA’s Voyager 2 became the first—and thus far, the only—spacecraft to visit Uranus. While en route to Pluto, New Horizons crossed the orbit of Uranus, marking the first time a spacecraft journeyed beyond the planet’s orbit since the Voyager 2 mission.
The James Webb Space Telescope: A Pioneer in Space Research
The JWST is a large, infrared telescope with a primary purpose of observing the universe’s most distant objects. It serves as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and represents the collaborative efforts of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
Launched in December 2021, the JWST resides at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point—a spot approximately 1.5 million km beyond Earth’s orbit around the Sun. This spot is one of five points in the Earth-Sun system’s orbital plane where gravitational forces create enhanced regions of attraction and repulsion.
The JWST’s main mission involves studying the early universe, galaxy formation, star and planet development, and exoplanet atmospheres.
Previous UPSC Civil Services Examination Question
In the 2014 preliminary exam, aspirants were asked to match various spacecraft with their respective purposes. The correct answer was that pairs 2 and 3—Messenger (mapping and investigating Mercury) and Voyager 1 and 2 (exploring the outer solar system)—were correctly matched.
Similarly, a 2022 mains exam question required candidates to discuss the unique features of the JWST, the key goals of its mission, and the potential benefits it might afford humanity.