They are new and spectacular images of Neptune.

With its infrared instrument, the telescope highlights Neptune’s features not seen that much detail since Voyager 2 flew over the planet in 1989.

These include rings and bands of dust that surround the so-called “ice giant”.

Scientists are also interested in the different cloud structures, which provide new information about the structure of Neptune’s atmosphere.

The moon appears as a star in Webb’s image.

That’s because Neptune is obscured in telescope view by the absorption of methane at infrared wavelengths.

Triton, on the other hand, reflects about 70% of the sunlight that falls on its icy surface. It is very bright.

Compared to recent images from the Hubble Space Telescope, which operates on technology that is three decades old, the differences are stark.

very interesting picture

Professor Leigh Fletcher, from the University of Leicester (UK), was at the Europlanet scientific conference in Granada, Spain, when the images of Neptune were published.

“We’re all trying to interpret this on our phones but it’s really amazing to see the ring, and we’re accessing wavelengths that nobody has seen before,” he told the BBC.

“Good to see how excited everyone is!

“The longer wavelengths are completely new and could give us a window into deep circulation patterns, with bright equatorial bands that look a bit like Jupiter and Saturn’s bright bands.”

“Neptune’s strong storm is still active as usual, and the entire Neptune family is represented here, with that ring moon and Triton.”

Neptune is the outermost planet in our Solar System, outside of Uranus and Saturn, followed only by the dwarf planet Pluto.

To go around the Sun, it must travel about 4,500 million kilometers, something it achieves every 164.8 Earth years.

Like other giants outside the Solar System, its atmosphere contains large amounts of hydrogen and helium. But there is a very strong presence of ice, water, ammonia and methane.

Neptune’s diameter is about 50,000 km, almost four times the diameter of Earth.

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