James Webb’s Space Telescope discovered a strange “dark bead” above the four-armed star pattern in Saturn’s atmosphere. The surprising structure is unlike anything scientists have seen before, and we don’t know what they are.
An unusual feature was discovered by James Webb’s Space Telescope (JWST) near-infrared spectrometer (NIRSPEC) as he peered into the atmosphere of a gas giant above a hexagonal storm swirling at the planet’s North Pole.
Astronomers had expected emissions to be seen throughout the wide band of the infrared spectrum of the atmospheric layer above the vortex. But what they instead noticed was the bead-like features separated by large distances, slowly drifting in the charged plasma of the planet’s Ionosphere and slowly drifting in the stratospheric biased star-shaped structure beneath it. On August 28, they published their findings in the Journal Geophysics Research Book.
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“The outcome was a complete surprise,” said Tom Stallard, a professor of astronomy at the University of Northumbria in the UK. “These features are completely unexpected and are currently not explained at all.”
The Saturn hexagon was first discovered in 1980 by NASA’s Voyager spacecraft and was captured in detail by the Cassini spacecraft orbiting the planet from 2004 to 2017.
Scientists believe that the hexagon is driven by a jet stream circling the planet’s poles, owing its unique shape to the properties of gases in the atmosphere of Saturn. However, the exact reason for this flow and shape is not certain. And there is no atmospheric behavior above that, due to the very weak emissions that come from it.
To investigate, astronomers concentrated JWST’s NIRSPEC instruments in the Ionosphere and stratosphere of Saturn, located 684 miles (1,100 km) and 373 miles (600 km) from the planet’s nominal surface, respectively.
Related: Saturn will be the biggest and brightest on September 21st – here’s how to see it
For over 10 hours, the telescope tracked positively charged hydrogen molecules (H3+, involved in many planetary atmosphere reactions) through Saturn’s ionosphere and methane molecules throughout its ionosphere, revealing strange structures.
“We believe that dark beads can be attributed to the complex interaction between Saturn’s magnetosphere and its rotating atmosphere, and could provide new insights into the energy exchange that drives Saturn’s aurora,” Starard said.
Meanwhile, the asymmetric star pattern could somehow be tied to a hexagonal storm pattern, he said.
“It piques the appetite, and the darkest beads of the Ionosphere appear to line up with the arms of the strongest stars in the stratosphere, but at this point it’s not clear whether they are actually linked or just by chance,” he added.
To understand what is causing function and affecting Saturn’s atmosphere, the team wants to conduct follow-up observations at JWST. Saturn is currently at that point. This means that the pattern can change dramatically as the sun crosses the planet’s face. On September 21st, the reverberating planet will be the closest point to Earth. This is the perfect time to observe Saturn with a telescope and try to analyze many of its mysteries.
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