We live in interesting times, which are often more tragic than boring ones. It's not all gloom and doom—we live at a time when the James Webb Space Telescope has just come online, and it could explore distant corners of the cosmos for another 20 years. NASA has also used the telescope to peer at nearer objects like Jupiter. Now, it's Saturn's turn, and you can get a preview of Webb's Saturn photospread right now.
The Webb Telescope is currently hovering in space out past the orbit of the moon at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point, instead of in low Earth orbit like Hubble. Webb needed to be all the way out there to protect its sensitive infrared instruments from heat. Since it captures infrared data with its primary Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument, the data has to be processed to make it more accurate to the human eye.
The JWST Feed website isn't associated with NASA or any other aerospace agency. It exists solely to publish every scrap of data received by Webb as soon as it's released. Right now, it's pumping out new views of Saturn. The images haven't been processed yet, but they look incredible—this is what Webb sees when it looks at the ringed planet.
In many of the images, like the one above, the planet itself is dim, and the rings are extra luminous. This is due to the use of filters, which will help scientists image different aspects of the planet. Here, the NIRCam used its F322W2 long wavelength filter. These frames will be stacked during processing to make all parts of the planet crystal clear and detailed.
In this second image, the NIRCam switched to using the shorter wavelength F150W2 filter. So the rings are still obscenely bright, but you can also see the cloud bands of Saturn.
Since these images are fresh off the high-frequency radio antenna, astronomers are still working on the science, and it could be a while before we see what becomes of the data. When these images are processed, they could be the best visual record of Saturn since the Cassini probe ended its mission in 2017. Webb is also adept at capturing tiny points of light that might turn out to be moons. Perhaps it'll find enough that Saturn can reclaim the crown for most known moons from Jupiter.
