The James Webb Space Telescope has successfully detected auroras on Neptune for the first time ever, finishing a job that NASA's Voyager 2 probe began decades ago.
The James Webb Space Telescope detected infrared auroras on Neptune for the first time. The auroras are shown in cyan in this enhanced-color image. New James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images have captured auroras on Neptune for the first time. The telescope spotted infrared auroras that create exotic molecules known as trihydrogen cations, according to a study published March 26 in Nature . Scientists identified auroras on Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus more than 30 years ago, but Neptune's auroras staunchly evaded detection until now. Auroras form when energetic, charged particles from the sun get caught up in a planet's magnetic field. The field funnels the particles toward the planet's magnetic poles, where they collide with — and ionize — atmospheric molecules along the way, causing them to glow. Unlike auroras on Earth, which occur at extreme northern and southern latitudes near our planet's North and South Pole, Neptune's auroras appear near the planet's mid-latitudes. That's because Neptune's magnetic field is…