A Titan-ic success! Here is Webb’s first look at Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Because Titan has a dense atmosphere, its surface is hidden in visible light. Enter Webb’s infrared eye, which captured clouds as well as bright and dark patches on its surface. Titan is unique in the solar system. It is the only planetary body other than Earth that has rivers, lakes, and seas. Rather than water, they are made up of “hydrocarbons,” molecules like ethane and methane. The two clouds seen by Webb validate long-held predictions that clouds form in the northern hemisphere during Titan's late summer, when the Sun warms its surface. Follow-up observations by the Keck Observatory also revealed clouds, confirming seasonal weather patterns. Note: This is Webb science in progress and not yet peer reviewed. Scientists are still analyzing data and have more observations planned. More at our link in bio! Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, W.M. Keck Observatory, A. Pagan (STScI), JWST Titan GTO Team. Image descriptions: 1. Graphic of “The James Webb Space Telescope’s First Look at Titan.” Background shows a Webb image of Titan, resembling a large red marble against the blackness of space. 2. Image of Titan’s lower atmosphere and clouds, taken by Webb’s NIRCam instrument with a 2.12-micron filter. Titan is in various shades of red, from nearly black to nearly white. Three bright spots are labeled. Spot along the edge at 11 o’clock is labeled “Cloud A.” A larger, brighter spot at 1 o’clock is labeled “Cloud B.” A nearly white, crescent-shaped spot along the bottom from about 5 to 7 o’clock is labeled “Atmospheric Haze.” 3. Color composite image of Titan’s atmosphere and surface by Webb’s NIRCam. It is in shades of white, bluish green, and brown. Clouds A and B are bright white spots in the same locations as before. Cloud A is small and subtle, while Cloud B is brighter and appears larger than in the previous image. Three surface features are also labeled: a bluish green patch near Cloud A as “Kraken Mare (methane sea);” a dark brown area below the center as “Belet (dark-colored sand dunes)”; and a small pale spot just inside the edge around 4 o’clock as “Adiri (bright patch).”