James Webb Space Telescope takes its first images and spectra of Mars

The European Space Agency (ESA) released the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) first images and infrared spectrum of Mars.

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The Webb telescope captured its first images and spectra of the red planet on September 5, 2022.

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JWST’s first images of Mars were captured by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and shows a part of the planet’s eastern hemisphere at two different wavelengths.

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The Webb images of Mars show differences in brightness over a large number of wavelengths from place to place across the planet at a particular date and time.

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Webb is situated approximately 1.5 million kilometres away from our planet at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2).

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Mars is very close to the Earth and it is one of the brightest objects in the night sky, in both visible and infrared light.

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