New images from the James Webb Telescope have sparked excitement among astronomers around the world. Stargazers have captured clouds in the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, for the first time.
The James Webb telescope was targeting Titan on November 5. Through the infrared scope, the telescope detected two large clouds in the atmosphere. Computer models had already predicted that clouds could exist in Saturn’s moon’s atmosphere, but they were never observed.
The largest cloud was over Titan’s north polar region, near Kraken Mare. This is the largest known sea of liquid methane on the Moon.
To prove that Webb had indeed seen the clouds, telescopes at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii were pointed at Titan two days later. Images from stargazers confirm the discovery by the James Webb Telescope. Observations from the Keck telescope show that the clouds may change shape in the intervening days.
Connor Nixon wrote Articles On the NASA website. “The images prove that clouds can form in late summer, when the sun warms the surface.”
Titan is the fearsome moon in our solar system with a dense atmosphere. The pressure in the moon’s atmosphere is four times higher than on Earth.
Titan’s surface contains water ice, but rivers and seas filled with liquid ethane and methane can also be found. Researchers even suspect that there may be oceans of liquid water on the surface of the moon. The moon’s atmosphere is thick and hazy and made up of clouds of methane. This gives the atmosphere an orange glow.
The James Webb Telescope is the most powerful space telescope ever built and has been searching the universe since July. In recent months, this has already resulted in many unique images from space.
