The James Webb Space Telescope spends most of its time staring deep into the universe, but it can also take a look closer to home - as demonstrated by pictures of Mars.
Left: Existing map of Mars. Top right: Infrared image of the same image revealing surface features such as craters and dust layers.
JWST’s images are of the eastern hemisphere of Mars, in two different infrared wavelengths. The shorter wavelength shows reflected sunlight, revealing surface features often seen in visible-light images, while the longer one reveals information about heat emitted from the Martian surface and atmosphere, as well as the concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere .
Imaging close planets like Mars is difficult for an instrument like JWST, which was designed to detect very distant, faint objects. The infrared sunlight reflected from Mars overloads JWST’s detectors, so Villanueva and his team had to adapt their method by taking short exposures and only sampling some of the light from the detectors.
One advantage of JWST being so close, and so sensitive, is that the short exposure times means that the entire planet can be imaged at once in high resolution, which should allow for the study of events that happen over a short timescale, like dust storms, weather patterns and seasonal changes.This full picture will also allow scientists to more easily track down the sources of any identified trace gases that they spot.
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