19 February 2025: Michael Roman

Speaker: Michael Roman (Leicester)

Date: Wednesday 19 February 2025

Time: 15:00

Location: 3.21

Revealing the Ice Giants in the Infrared: Uranus and Neptune from JWST

Once beyond the limits of the known planets, Uranus and Neptune remain among the most intriguing and least explored bodies in the Solar System. They are seen as representatives of a distinct class of planet, known as ice giants, and they may serve as keys to understanding the most common type of exoplanets found beyond our Solar System.  Yet, our knowledge and understanding of Uranus or Neptune remains surprisingly poor. Their great distances and cold temperatures have particularly challenged infrared investigations—our primary means of remotely inferring the temperatures and chemistry of giant planets. Now, thanks to the unprecedented capabilities of JWST, we can reveal new views of these planets at wavelengths spanning the near- and mid-infrared wavelengths for the first time, opening a new window into their chemical and thermal structure. In this talk, we will introduce these new data and the results of our ongoing analyses, comparing and contrasting these two worlds and offering new insights into their composition, temperature, and clouds.