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This image of Uranus from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope exquisitely captures Uranus’s seasonal north polar cap and dim inner and outer rings. This Webb image also shows 9 of the planet’s 27 moons – clockwise starting at 2 o’clock, they are: Rosalind, Puck, Belinda, Desdemona, Cressida, Bianca, Portia, Juliet, and Perdita. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI ================================================================= A rare celestial alignment in April 2025 gave NASA scientists the chance to study Uranus in exceptional detail as it passed in front of a distant star. This stellar occultation, visible only from parts of western North America,...

This image of Uranus from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the planet and its rings in new clarity. The Webb image exquisitely captures Uranus’s seasonal north polar cap, including the bright, white, inner cap and the dark lane in the bottom of the polar cap. Uranus’ dim inner and outer rings are also visible in this image, including the elusive Zeta ring—the extremely faint and diffuse ring closest to the planet. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI ************************************************************************ NASA’s Voyager 2 flyby of Uranus decades ago shaped scientists’ understanding of the planet but also introduced unexplained...

The planet Uranus and its five biggest moons may not be the dead sterile worlds that scientists have long thought. Instead, they may have oceans, and the moons may even be capable of supporting life, scientists say. Much of what we know about them was gathered by Nasa’s Voyager 2 spacecraft... flew past and sent back sensational pictures of the planet and its five major moons. But what amazed scientists even more was the data Voyager 2 sent back indicating that the Uranian system was even weirder than they thought. The measurements from the spacecraft’s instruments indicated that the planets...

The mystery dates back to Voyager 2's visit to Uranus in January 1986, far before the probe left the solar system in 2018. The spacecraft found that Uranus' magnetic field is asymmetric and tilted roughly 60° away from its spin axis. Additionally, Voyager 2 found that the radiation belts of Uranus, consisting of particles trapped by this magnetic field, are about 100 times weaker than predicted. "It has a magnetic field like no other in the solar system. Most planets that have strong intrinsic magnetic fields, like Earth, Jupiter and Saturn. They have a very 'traditional' magnetic field shape, which...

Image of Uranus from Webb It seems crazy that Uranus was discovered in 1781 yet here we are, in 2024 and we have only sent one spacecraft to explore Uranus. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have given us close-up images of Uranus (and Neptune) but since their visit in 1986, we have not returned. There have of course been great images from the Hubble Space Telescope and from the James Webb Space Telescope but we still have lots to learn about them. The discovery of Uranus was accidental! British astronomer William Herschel was surveying stars that were too...

NASA is asking amateur astronomers to help the agency study the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. Next month, NASA will be observing the two planets via its New Horizons spacecraft, originally designed to explore Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, a disc of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune and often a source of comets. Working with the Hubble Space Telescope, New Horizons plans to capture images of Uranus and Neptune in color. Because the spacecraft has passed the orbit of both planets, the images will be taken from "behind," which should provide some data regarding the atmosphere on both...