Uranus is not the first planet that comes to astronomers' minds when they hear about rings; its more spectacular celestial cousins like Saturn and Jupiter earn that distinction. Yet the rings around Uranus are quite magnificent on their own, as revealed among other things by recent images taken by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
The images, which were captured by the JWST's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), are particularly notable for the clarity and detail that they offer in showing the rings of Uranus. Among these is the famous zeta ring, a very faint and dusty celestial object first discovered by the Voyager 2 satellite in 1986. On its website NASA describes this ring as "elusive" and adds that the JWST was only able to capture an image of "the extremely faint and diffuse ring closest to the planet" because of its "exquisite sensitivity."
