The Webb Space Telescope takes pictures of Mars for the first time

The Web Space Telescope He surprised us with pictures of distant galaxies and bright nebulae, but he sent now Their first pictures of our neighbor in the solar system, Mars. data only The published data comes from the telescope’s infrared instruments and provides scientists with information about the composition of the Martian surface and atmosphere.

European Space Agency announce today The Webb Space Telescope got its first look From Mars on September 5 using infrared camera near and near infrared spectrometer. This is the first look of the telescope actually consists of two images taken in two images Infrared wavelengths. show The eastern hemisphere of the planet before it, which See the web roughly from his point of view 1.5 million kilometers far at point L.2 from Lagrange Sun-Earth.

The first image (top right in the graphic above) shows a view of Mars at 2.1 μm, while the second image (bottom right) was taken at 4.3 μm, Wavelengths that correspond to the near-infrared spectrum, which is invisible to the eye Human.

The Webb also collected some spectroscopic data about the Martian atmosphere using the near-infrared spectrometer. The spectrometer reveals some of the molecules that make up the very thin atmosphere of Mars, including carbon dioxide, water, and carbon monoxide, which correspond to the parts highlighted on the chart. Although this is not a leading conclusion, it shows Webb’s ability to characterize a file Atmosphere composition of different planets.

“Estas primeras observaciones del Webb de Marte demuestran cómo podemos estudiar las diferentes regiones de su superficie, incluida la composición de su atmósfera con el instrumento NIRSpec”, dijo Chris Evans, científico del proyecto Webb para la ESA, en un correo electrónico a Gizmodo . “Siguiendo lo que se ha hecho con otras misiones, y sin las limitaciones de la atmósfera de la Tierra en la espectroscopia terrestre, el Webb nos brindará nuevos conocimientos sobre temas importantes como la historia del agua en Marte”.

Apuntando la mirada del Webb a un planeta bien estudiado como Marte, los científicos pueden establecer qué tan fiable es el telescopio de alta tecnología para estudiar cuerpos celestes muy distantes. A medida que el Webb continúa fijando su vista en objetos de todo el universo, nos sigue emocionando obtener nuevas vistas de nuestro vecindario cósmico, como la vista reciente imagen de un Bright Jupiter and its twilight.