Webb telescope spots a brand new moon orbiting Uranus

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) continues to bear fruit. Photographs captured by the floating watchtower revealed a beforehand unknown moon orbiting Uranus. The invention, made on February 2, will increase the planet’s moon tally to 29.

The moon was simple to overlook: It is solely an estimated six miles huge. It is positioned about 35,000 miles from Uranus’ middle, orbiting the planet’s equatorial aircraft. The moon has a virtually round orbit, suggesting it might have fashioned close to its present location.

NASA’s brief video beneath reveals the faint speck orbiting its ringed host.

The brand new moon joins 13 different small moons in Uranus’ orbit. The planet additionally has 5 main moons (Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon) and 10 irregular ones. The brand new moon will not have a reputation till one is accepted by the Worldwide Astronomical Union (IAU).

It was detected utilizing 10 40-minute long-exposure pictures taken by Webb’s Close to-Infrared Digicam (NIRCam). A workforce led by the Southwest Analysis Institute pored via the telescope’s pictures to establish it.

“No different planet has as many small interior moons as Uranus, and their complicated inter-relationships with the rings trace at a chaotic historical past that blurs the boundary between a hoop system and a system of moons,” Matthew Tiscareno of the SETI Institute wrote. “Furthermore, the brand new moon is smaller and far fainter than the smallest of the beforehand recognized interior moons, making it doubtless that much more complexity stays to be found.”