science

'Hidden' rings of Uranus revealed in dazzling new James Webb telescope images


Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have zoomed in on the faint and dusty rings around Uranus — and they are magnificent.

Located near the frigid edge of the solar system an average of 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) from the sun, Uranus is not often thought of as a ringed world, mainly because the icy planet is far too distant and faint to be seen from Earth with the naked eye. The same is doubly true for Uranus’ 13 rings of ice and dust — most of which are so faint that astronomers couldn’t confirm their existence until the Voyager 2 spacecraft made a close flyby of the planet in 1986, according to NASA (opens in new tab).



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