The Webb Telescope finally shows us Uranus’ glorious rings

Most pictures of Uranus in textbooks show it as a bright blue, featureless ball.

NASA scientists say Uranus’ rings have only been captured by two other cameras. They were first scoped out by the Voyager 2 spacecraft as it flew past in 1986. Later, the Keck Observatory in Hawaii spied the planet’s ring system with advanced adaptive optics technology.

But the James Webb Space Telescope, the preeminent new observatory that senses light at invisible, infrared wavelengths, allows astronomers to see the seventh planet from the sun for what it truly is: a world crowned with rings, glorious rings.