Although NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was initially said to be capable of revealing the farthest horizons of our universe—and it certainly is—some of the observatory’s most beautiful images are actually images of our own solar system.

With a gold-plated mirror shell and a backpack full of infrared equipment like the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), the James Webb Space Telescope makes us feel like we’re seeing our planetary neighbors, reintroducing us to the amazing place we call home. first time again. It even gave us a touching view of Neptune’s fragile rings; This was something that hadn’t been done in 30 years.

But on Thursday, October 19, scientists announced that the JWST images of our cosmic neighborhood not only offer a new perspective on the Solar System, but also give us new data about Jupiter, a planet we thought we knew pretty well.

Images of the gas giant taken by the observatory last year showed us completely new things about its moons, atmosphere and rings. (Yes, Jupiter has rings, too!) In fact, after reviewing images of Jupiter taken by JWST in 2022, the research team realized that the planet has a high-speed jet stream more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) wide. approximately 320 mph (515 km/h) This is something never seen before.

“This really surprised us,” said Ricardo Hueso, of the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain, and lead author of a paper describing the study’s findings. “It’s surprising to me that after years of tracking Jupiter’s clouds and winds from so many observatories, we still have so much to learn,” said Lee Fletcher of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who led the new study. .

What could this mean?

Flying at nearly twice the speed of a Category 5 hurricane on Earth and located right above the equator, this newly discovered jet stream on Jupiter could shed light on the planet’s turbulent atmosphere, according to the team. In fact, all these images of Jupiter in 2022 may help researchers understand what is happening in the sky of the apricot-striped sphere.

“What we always saw as murky mists in Jupiter’s atmosphere are now emerging as distinct features where we can track the planet’s rapid rotation,” Hueso said.

Jupiter is famous for its extreme weather conditions; For example, you may have heard of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot; It’s an endless, massive storm so big that it can be seen from our vantage point on Earth even with a regular old optical telescope. And what is important for scientific research is that Jupiter’s atmosphere is layered, just like Earth’s. This means wind speeds in different layers likely contribute to the giant planet’s stormy climate.

So Hueso and his colleagues hope to compare what JWST’s infrared view sees in JWST’s upper atmosphere (which reveals a new jet stream through some cloud-related features) with what the Hubble Space Telescope sees in deeper layers. Hopefully this will give us a pretty clear picture of those fierce Jupiter winds.

In fact, Hubble’s images, mostly of the visible and ultraviolet parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, have already helped by providing information about what the region around Jupiter’s equator generally looks like (so the team can have a baseline before examining JWST’s equatorial space). ). jet stream data) and for other non-jet-related storms in the region.

“We knew that the different wavelengths of Webb and Hubble would reveal the three-dimensional structure of storm clouds, but we were also able to use time-lapse data to see how quickly storms were developing,” said Michael Wong of the University of California at Berkeley. . In the statement, it was stated that he was the person who managed the relevant Hubble observations and participated in the new study.

In other words, the team explains, this comparison could help us understand how Jupiter’s wind speed varies with altitude, producing what are called “wind shears” that are similar to short-range wind speed gradients. The extremely fast jet itself is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) above the planet’s cloud tops, so if low winds show much lower speeds, the result will likely be wind shear.