NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
The James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera captured an image of Jupiter in infrared light. The bright white spots and streaks are likely high-altitude cloud tops of storms. Auroras, shown in red, can be seen around the poles.

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Jupiter was one of the first targets observed by the James Webb Space Telescope when it initially turned its infrared gaze on the universe in July 2022. After capturing stunning images that surpassed the expectations of astronomers, the space observatory has now revealed a never-before-seen feature in the gas giant’s atmosphere.

Researchers used Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera, or NIRCam, to take a series of images of Jupiter 10 hours apart, applying four different filters to detect changes in the planet’s atmosphere. Infrared light is invisible to the human eye, and the Webb telescope’s unprecedented capabilities have been used over the past year to spot many newly observed celestial features, such as megaclusters of young stars and unexpected pairs of planetlike objects.

The astronomers spied a high-speed jet stream in Jupiter’s lower stratosphere, an atmospheric layer about 25 miles (40 kilometers) above the clouds. The jet stream, which sits over the planet’s equator, spans more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) wide and moves at 320 miles per hour (515 kilometers per hour), or twice the rate seen with sustained winds of a Category 5 hurricane on Earth.

The study findings, made possible by Webb’s sensitive capabilities, shed light on the dynamic interactions within Jupiter’s stormy atmosphere.

NASA/ESA/CSA
For as long as humans have gazed into the night sky, we have wondered about life beyond the Earth. Scientists now know that several places in our solar system might have conditions suitable for life. One of these is Jupiter's moon Europa, a fascinating world with a salty, subsurface ocean of liquid water—possibly twice as much as in all of Earth's oceans combined. However, scientists had not confirmed if Europa's ocean contained biologically essential chemicals, particularly carbon, the universal building block for life as we know it. Now, using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have found carbon on Europa's surface, which likely originated in this ocean. The discovery signals a potentially habitable environment in the ocean of Europa.

Webb spots a building block of life on Jupiter’s moon Europa

“This is something that totally surprised us,” said Ricardo Hueso, lead author of the study published October 19 in the journal Nature Astronomy, in a statement. Hueso is a physics lecturer at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain.

“What we have always seen as blurred hazes in Jupiter’s atmosphere now appear as crisp features that we can track along with the planet’s fast rotation,” he said.

Jupiter’s wild weather

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and is composed of gases, so it couldn’t be more different from Earth. But similar to our planet, Jupiter has a layered atmosphere. These turbulent layers have been observed by previous missions and telescopes attempting to better understand how the different parts of the atmosphere interact with one another. The layers also contain weather patterns, including century-spanning storms such as Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and clouds made of icy ammonia.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
In this image captured on December 30, 2020, Juno spotted lightning striking near Jupiter's north pole.

NASA spacecraft captures image of ghostly lightning on Jupiter

While other missions have penetrated deeper into Jupiter’s swirling clouds by using different wavelengths of light to peer beneath them, Webb is uniquely positioned to study the higher-altitude layers, about 15 to 30 miles (25 to 50 kilometers) above the cloud tops, and spy previously indistinct details.

“Even though various ground-based telescopes, spacecraft like NASA’s Juno and Cassini, and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have observed the Jovian system’s changing weather patterns, Webb has already provided new findings on Jupiter’s rings, satellites, and its atmosphere,” said study coauthor Imke de Pater, professor emeritus of astronomy, Earth and planetary science at the University of California, Berkeley, in a statement.

Jet stream revelations

Researchers compared winds detected by Webb at high altitudes with those within the lower layers picked up by Hubble and tracked changes in wind speed. Both space observatories were necessary to detect the jet stream, as Webb spotted small cloud features and Hubble provided a look at the equatorial atmosphere, including storms not related to the jet. The two telescopes provided a broader look at Jupiter’s complex atmosphere and the processes taking place within the layers.

“We knew the different wavelengths of Webb and Hubble would reveal the three-dimensional structure of storm clouds, but we were also able to use the timing of the data to see how rapidly storms develop,” said study coauthor Michael Wong, planetary scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the associated Hubble observations, in a statement.

Future observations of Jupiter using the Webb telescope may uncover more insights into the jet stream, such as whether its speed and altitude shift over time, as well as other surprises.

NASA/ESA
This artist's concept of Comet 238P/Read shows the main belt comet sublimating—its water ice vapourising as its orbit approaches the Sun. This is significant, as the sublimation is what distinguishes comets from asteroids, creating their distinctive tail and hazy halo, or coma. The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope's detection of water vapour at Comet Read is a major benchmark in the study of main belt comets, and in the broader investigation of the origin of Earth's abundant water. [Image description: Illustration, close up of rocky body of a comet with detailed, cratered surface. Glowing rays emanate from the rocky surface like sunlight through clouds, representing water ice being vapourised by the heat of the Sun.]

Webb telescope spots water in rare comet

“It’s amazing to me that, after years of tracking Jupiter’s clouds and winds from numerous observatories, we still have more to learn about Jupiter, and features like this jet can remain hidden from view until these new NIRCam images were taken in 2022,” said study coauthor Leigh Fletcher, professor of planetary science at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, in a statement.

“Jupiter has a complicated but repeatable pattern of winds and temperatures in its equatorial stratosphere, high above the winds in the clouds and hazes measured at these wavelengths. If the strength of this new jet is connected to this oscillating stratospheric pattern, we might expect the jet to vary considerably over the next 2 to 4 years — it’ll be really exciting to test this theory in the years to come.”