The great red spot, polar cyclones, cloud bands. Jupiter is known for its colossal dimensions and eternal storms. But their auroras are not far behind, and only now we are seeing them in detail thanks to the power of the James Webb space telescope.
A Christmas gift. Just published together with a study by Nature Communications, the images were captured on December 25, 2023 with the Nircam Chamber of the Webb Telescope.
The most immediate conclusion is that the jovian auroras are of another level. Hundreds of times brighter and more energy than those of the Earth, not only feed, as on our planet, of the particles loaded with the solar wind, but also of the volcanic material expelled by the active moon ío.
Hyperactive. The team that led the observations took a surprise when analyzing the data. They hoped to see slow and gradual changes in the auroras, but instead they found “the entire bullendo region and exploding of light”, a hyperactive show that “varied in a matter of seconds.”
“What a Christmas gift was that, he left me hallucinated!” Confesses the researcher Jonathan Nichols of the University of Leicester, the United Kingdom.
A mystery. To round the study, the team coordinated webb observations in infrared with simultaneous observations of the Hubble space telescope in the ultraviolet spectrum. And here was the puzzle: the brightest lights observed by the Webb in Jupiter’s atmosphere did not have a counterpart in the Hubble images.
The webb focused on trihydrogen cation emissions (H3+), a molecule that shines intensely in infrared when high -energy electrons impact molecular hydrogen. But to produce the combination of brightness observed by both telescopes, a huge amount of very low energy particles would be needed by hitting Jupiter’s atmosphere, something that until now was considered practically impossible.
What follows. The team plans to study this difference between webb and Hubble data, and explore its implications for Jupiter’s environment. Webb’s next observations will be compared with NASA Juno probe data to try to unravel the origin of the broadcast.
The findings will be used to guide the Juice Mission of the ESA, which now travels to Jupiter. Seven of their instruments, including their two cameras, will dedicate themselves to study the Jovian auroras when the probe reaches their destination. Its nearby measurements will help astronomers better understand the interaction between the magnetic field and the planet’s atmosphere, in addition to the moon ío.
Images | NASA, ESA, CSA
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