The James Webb Space Telescope identified the lights in the distant planet’s atmosphere, which could not be seen by earlier telescopes or spacecraft.

NASA’s Webb Space Telescope was finally able to capture bright auroras on Neptune—the most distant planet in our solar system.

Using Webb’s near-infrared spectrograph, astronomers have captured new images of Neptune that finally reveal the planet’s mysterious auroral activity. Faint hints of Neptune’s auroras were first detected during Voyager 2’s flyby of the planet, but Webb’s latest discovery is the first direct evidence of the phenomenon.

After 34 years of searching, astronomers have finally confirmed Neptune has auroras, thanks to data from the James Webb Space Telescope

NAS's James Webb Space Telescope has captured Neptune’s glowing auroras in the best detail yet. Hints of auroras were first faintly detected in ultraviolet light during a flyby of the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989.

Neptune often looks slightly different in observations, as it has dark spots which appear periodically. But it can also be bright at times, as the observations of auroras there show: In the image above, the auroras are shown in the cyan color.

All planets are made of gas, ice, rock and metal, and models of how planets form usually assume that these materials don't react chemically with each other. But what if some of them do?

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope used its Near-Infrared Spectrograph to capture Neptune’s auroras in stunning detail.