Astronomy Picture of the Day

Explanation: For the first time we are witnessing outer planet Uranus take center stage and pirouette. Uranus is one of the Solar System’s strangest planets, laying on its side and spinning like a rotisserie chicken. The featured video is composed of over 1000 spectra taken over 15 hours of continuous viewing by JWST's NIRSpec instrument while Uranus rotates. The data captures the behavior of Uranus’s ionosphere: the ionized layer of a planet’s atmosphere that strongly interacts with the planet's magnetic field. The aurora’s rosy glow traces the complex interplay between Uranus's misaligned rotation and magnetic axes. Clouds can be seen as bright spots traveling across the ice giant. The blue-to-red colors represent low-to-high altitudes, showing a brand new three-dimensional view into how energy is distributed throughout the planet’s atmosphere. In the image on the left, everything is framed by the rings of Uranus. This is the most detailed look into the atmosphere of Uranus achieved yet!