James Webb releases first images of Mars

By Barbara Pereira / 19/09/2022 / 1 minute reading

The James Webb Space Telescope captured its first images of Mars on September 5, NASA's blog published this Monday (19). Webb was able to capture spectra with the resolution necessary to study phenomena such as thunderstorms. poewrath and weather patterns.

Mars is one of the brightest objects in the night sky in terms of visible light (which human eyes can see) and infrared light that the telescope James Webb was designed to detect. This poses special challenges for the observatory, which was built to detect the extremely faint light from the most distant galaxies in the universe.

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To get around this, astronomers used very short exposures, measuring only part of the light that reached the detectors and applying special data analysis techniques.

Webb got its first look at @NASAMars!! 👀

The close-up on the left reveals surface features such as Huygens Crater, dark volcanic Syrtis Major, and Hellas Basin, while the “heat map" on the right shows light being given off by Mars as it loses heat. More: https://t.co/7dVIr9g6NB pic.twitter.com/xOiPbz5nsT
- NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) September 19, 2022