The James Webb telescope has captured its first images and spectra of the Red Planet, according to NASA, which is collaborating with scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) on the James Webb project.Webb, which launched in December 2021 and is located roughly 1.6 million kilometers away from Earth, was able to capture the sunlit side of Mars that was facing the telescope.From its vantage point, Webb can at once observe Martian processes that occur at various times of day, and it will help researchers study short-term phenomena like seasonal changes, weather and dust storms, said NASA.Webb's images provide insights that help complement data gathered by the other telescopes, rovers and orbiters that are studying Mars.Because Mars is so close and so bright—and because Webb is so sensitive—researchers had to employ special observing techniques to avoid what's known as detector saturation, a phenomenon caused by too much infrared light that ‘blinds& the sensors.
To get around this issue, scientists used very short exposures and only measured some of the light that reached Webb's instruments.The fact that, when we opened the images and when we got the spectra, we actually could get the data and they were good data, it was exciting,& says Sara Faggi, an astrophysicist working on the project for NASA, to New Scientist's Alex Wilkins.The telescope's first images of Mars depict surface features such as dust layers, craters and dark spots, including the Hellas Basin, Syrtis Major and Huygens Crater.They also show variations in temperature at different latitudes and times of day, revealing warm regions where the Sun was almost directly overhead, as well as cooler areas in the northern hemisphere and near Mars& polar regions.The telescope may also be able to help astronomers look for trace gasses in the Martian atmosphere, including hydrogen chloride, methane and other chemical compounds.
The presence of methane, a potential marker of life in Mars's past, has been particularly tricky to confirm using other instruments.
Now, scientists are hopeful that Webb will be able to help.The post James Webb telescope captures its first images of Mars first appeared on Ariana News.