NASA's James Webb Telescope Finds Jet Flow In Jupiter's Atmosphere

JAKARTA - The James Webb Space Telescope shared extraordinary findings that surprised a number of researchers. The reason is, Webb managed to see foreign flows in Jupiter's atmospheric layers.

The telescope, which belongs to the United States Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA), has found a high-speed jet stream of more than 4,800 kilometers long. This stream is above Jupiter's equator, just above the first cloud layer.

Jupiter has been researched using various tools, from Juno and Cassini spacecraft to the Hubble Space Telescope. However, the results of tracking Jupiter's atmosphere are always the same.

Usually, Jupiter's atmosphere only looks like a fuzzy fog. However, Webb managed to bring out a sharp feature that researchers could track because of the rapid rotation of the planet.

The jet flow was first discovered when researchers analyzed data from Webb's Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) in July last year. After conducting considerable research, the researchers finally found out the speed of the flow.

It is not without reason that this flow is referred to as a jet stream. The researchers say that this flow moves up to 515 kilometers per hour. The location of this flow is 40 kilometers above the clouds, precisely in the lower stratosphere.

Although Webb has succeeded in producing new findings capable of detecting small cloud features, these observations still require Hubble. Later, Hubble will assist Webb in determining the ground state of Jupiter's equatorial atmosphere.

Currently, researchers are observing the flow from the jet they found. They will examine whether the speed and height of the jet flow in Jupiter's atmosphere will change.