With its exquisite sensitivity, Webb captured Uranus’ dim inner and outer rings, including the elusive Zeta ring — the extremely faint and diffuse ring closest to the planet. It also imaged many of the planet’s 27 known moons, even seeing some small moons within the rings.

In visible wavelengths as seen by Voyager 2 in the 1980s, Uranus appeared as a placid, solid blue ball. In infrared wavelengths, Webb is revealing a strange and dynamic ice world filled with exciting atmospheric features.

One of the most striking of these is the planet’s seasonal north polar cloud cap. Compared to the Webb image from earlier this year, some details of the cap are easier to see in these newer images. These include the bright, white, inner cap and the dark lane in the bottom of the polar cap, toward the lower latitudes.

Several bright storms can also be seen near and below the southern border of the polar cap. The number of these storms, and how frequently and where they appear in Uranus’s atmosphere, might be due to a combination of seasonal and meteorological effects.

The polar cap appears to become more prominent when the planet’s pole begins to point toward the Sun, as it approaches solstice and receives more sunlight. Uranus reaches its next solstice in 2028, and astronomers are eager to watch any possible changes in the structure of these features. Webb will help disentangle the seasonal and meteorological effects that influence Uranus’s storms, which is critical to help astronomers understand the planet’s complex atmosphere.

Because Uranus spins on its side at a tilt of about 98 degrees, it has the most extreme seasons in the solar system. For nearly a quarter of each Uranian year, the Sun shines over one pole, plunging the other half of the planet into a dark, 21-year-long winter.

With Webb’s unparalleled infrared resolution and sensitivity, astronomers now see Uranus and its unique features with groundbreaking new clarity. These details, especially of the close-in Zeta ring, will be invaluable to planning any future missions to Uranus.

Uranus can also serve as a proxy for studying the nearly 2,000 similarly sized exoplanets that have been discovered in the last few decades. This “exoplanet in our backyard” can help astronomers understand how planets of this size work, what their meteorology is like, and how they formed. This can in turn help us understand our own solar system as a whole by placing it in a larger context.

These new findings underscore the urgency of addressing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — potentially traumatic events that occur before 18 years of age — and taking steps to mitigate their long-term impact on people’s health.

The study reviews research carried out across 75 years, involving 826,452 adults. Published in the peer-reviewed journal European Journal of Psychotraumatology, it reveals that individuals who have been exposed to various forms of traumatic events in childhood are at an increased risk of experiencing chronic pain and pain-related disability in adulthood, particularly those subjected to physical abuse. The cumulative impact of exposure to multiple ACEs further exacerbates this risk.

“These results are extremely concerning, particularly as over 1 billion children — half of the global child population — are exposed to ACEs each year, putting them at increased risk of chronic pain and disability later in life,” says lead author Dr André Bussières, from the School of Physical & Occupational Therapy at McGill University, in Canada.

“There is an urgent need to develop targeted interventions and support systems to break the cycle of adversity and improve long-term health outcomes for those individuals who have been exposed to childhood trauma.”

ACEs may affect a child or teenager directly through physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, or neglect — or indirectly through exposure to environmental factors like domestic violence, living with substance abuse or parental loss. Chronic pain, affecting between one-third and one-half of the UK population alone, is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. Long-term painful conditions such as low back pain, arthritis, headache and migraine, can affect a person’s daily functioning to the point they can’t work, eat properly, or participate in physical activities.

Previous research has indicated a positive relationship between exposure to ACEs and chronic pain in adulthood. However, there are still gaps in knowledge — particularly around which type of ACEs are associated with specific pain-related conditions, or whether a dose-response relationship exists.

To help address these gaps, the authors carried out a systematic review that included 85 studies. Of those, results from 57 studies could be pooled in meta-analyses. They found that:

• Individuals exposed to a direct ACE, whether physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, or neglect, were 45% more likely to report chronic pain in adulthood compared to those not exposed.

“These results underscore the urgency of addressing ACES, particularly in light of their prevalence and health repercussions,” says the senior author Professor Jan Hartvigsen, from the University of Southern Denmark.

“A more nuanced understanding of the precise relationship between ACEs and chronic pain will empower healthcare professionals and policymakers to devise targeted strategies to help diminish the long-term impact of early-life adversity on adult health.”

The authors propose that future research should delve into the biological mechanisms through which ACEs affect health across the lifespan, aiming to deepen understanding and develop ways to mitigate their impact.