The James Webb Space Telescope just mapped auroras on Uranus in 3D for the 1st time, and scientists are thrilled

A blue circle with a red outline surrounded by white rings. — James Webb Space Telescope data created a fascinating timelapse video of Uranus spinning in space. (Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, STScI, P. Tiranti, H. Melin, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb))

An international team of researchers has uncovered new insights into the upper atmosphere of Uranus, where ions swirling above the ice giant planet's clouds meet the magnetic field surrounding the world.

"Uranus's magnetosphere is one of the strangest in the solar system," Paola Tiranti, a researcher at Northumbria University in the U.K., said in a statement. "It's tilted and offset from the planet's rotation axis, which means its auroras sweep across the surface in complex ways."

"By revealing Uranus's vertical structure in such detail, Webb is helping us understand the energy balance of the ice giants," Tiranti said. "This is a crucial step towards characterizing giant planets beyond our solar system."

A blue circle surrounded by rings. — Two bright auroral bands were detected near Uranus’s magnetic poles, together with reduced emission and ion density in part of the region between the two bands (a feature likely linked to transitions in magnetic field lines). (Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, STScI, P. Tiranti, H. Melin, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb))

The JWST continues to provide unprecedented detail on comic phenomena located millions, even billions, of miles away from us. With such detailed data available, scientists are still able to make new discoveries about the planets in our solar system. The telescope has previously had its sights set on Uranus too, even discovering a new moon of the planet in 2025.

"This is the first time we've been able to see Uranus's upper atmosphere in three dimensions," said Paola. "With Webb's sensitivity, we can trace how energy moves upward through the planet's atmosphere and even see the influence of its lopsided magnetic field."

Voyager 2 provided our first close-up data and images of Uranus way back in 1986. The flyby helped scientists figure out that Uranus is very cold compared to its neighboring planets — in fact, around then is when we found out Uranus is our solar system's coldest planet.

"Webb's data confirm that Uranus's upper atmosphere is still cooling, extending a trend that began in the early 1990s," said Paola. "The team measured an average temperature of around 426 kelvins (about 150 degrees Celsius), lower than values recorded by ground-based telescopes or previous spacecraft."

The research was published on Feb. 19 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Julian Dossett is a freelance writer living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He primarily covers the rocket industry and space exploration and, in addition to science writing, contributes travel stories to New Mexico Magazine. In 2022 and 2024, his travel writing earned IRMA Awards. Previously, he worked as a staff writer at CNET. He graduated from Texas State University in San Marcos in 2011 with a B.A. in philosophy. He owns a large collection of sci-fi pulp magazines from the 1960s.

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