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The James Webb Space Telescope<\/em> (JWST) has accomplished some spectacular feats since it began operations in 2021. Thanks to its sensitivity in the near- and mid-infrared wavelengths, it can take detailed images of cooler objects and reveal things that would otherwise go unnoticed. This includes the iconic image Webb took of Jupiter in August 2022, which showed the planet\u2019s atmospheric features (including its polar aurorae and Great Red Spot) in a new light. Using Webb, a team of European astronomers recently observed the region above the Great Red Spot and discovered previously unseen features.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The team was led by Dr. Henrik Melin, an STFC JWST Fellow and Planetary Scientist from the University of Leicester. He was joined by researchers from the University of Reading, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, the Center for Space Physics at Boston University, the Observatoire de Paris, the SETI Institute, NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and multiple universities. The paper that describes their observations recently appeared in the journal Nature Astronomy<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n The team conducted integral field spectroscopy (IFS) of Jupiter\u2019s Great Red Spot using Webb\u2019s Near-InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec) in July 2022. This process involves<\/em> dissecting an astronomical image into multiple spatial components and dispersing them with a spectrograph to provide spatially resolved information. Their observations were made as part of an Early Release Science program titled \u201cERS Observations of the Jovian System as a Demonstration of JWST\u2019s Capabilities for Solar System Science.\u201d<\/p>\n \n