The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captured the first-ever vertical photo of Uranus’ ionosphere, revealing the mysterious planet’s auroras. Using Webb’s NIRSpec instrument, or Near Infrared Spectrograph, an international team of astronomers mapped the vertical structure of Uranus‘ upper atmosphere for the first time. The research uncovered key insights into how temperature and charged particles vary with altitude across the planet, the seventh planet from the Sun. Uranus, a gaseous ice giant, is a relatively little-photographed planet. Compared to the beautiful, high-resolution photos different satellites and space probes have captured of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, Uranus and its even more distant planetary sibling, Neptune, are very rarely captured in close-up photos. Part of the reason why is that Uranus and Neptune are very far away, a problem Webb’s exceptional camera system and massive mirrors have solved.…