Webb Maps Uranus’ Upper Atmosphere

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope provided the first vertical view of Uranus’ ionosphere in this image released February 19, 2026, revealing auroras shaped by its tilted magnetic field.

Examining the structure of the region where the atmosphere strongly interacts with the planet’s magnetic field gives us the most detailed picture yet of where auroras form, how the magnetic field influences them, as well as data on how Uranus’ atmosphere has continued to cool since the 1990s.

Uranus has the strangest magnetosphere in the solar system. It’s tilted and offset from the planet’s rotation axis (and this planet already orbits the Sun almost sideways), which means the auroras move across the surface in complex ways. Better understanding Uranus will give us insight into ice giant planets and help us better characterize giant planets outside our solar system.

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Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, STScI, P. Tiranti, H. Melin, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)