Here on Earth , we sometimes experience beautiful shine dayspring due to the sunshine ’s activity — best known as the Northern Lights . But Earth is n’t the only planet to experience this phenomenon , as Aurora are also seen on satellite likeMarsandNeptunetoo . Now , the James Webb Space Telescope has appropriate a arresting example of this phenomenon in military action on Jupiter , where the calorie-free show of the auroras is hundreds of times brighter than it is on Earth .
dawning materialize when gumptious speck from the Lord’s Day interact with a planet ’s atmosphere , and they are typically envision around the major planet ’s magnetic poles . Observing the effect on Jupiter is not only visually salient , but it is also a style for astronomers to learn about the immense and complex magnetosphere of Jupiter .
The auroras were pick out when Webb was take reflexion on December 25 , 2023 — Christmas Day — though the analysis has only just been released .
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured new details of the auroras on our solar system’s largest planet. The dancing lights observed on Jupiter are hundreds of times brighter than those seen on Earth.NASA, ESA, CSA, Jonathan Nichols (University of Leicester), Mahdi Zamani (ESA/Webb)
“ What a Christmas nowadays it was – it just blew me away ! ” articulate lead researcher Jonathan Nichols of the University of Leicester , UK . “ We wanted to see how rapidly the break of the day change , bear them to wither in and out ponderously , perhaps over a twenty-five percent of an hour or so . rather , we observed the whole aurorean neighborhood fizzing and belt down with light , sometimes variegate by the second . ”
Jupiter ’s auroras are a small dissimilar from those on Earth , as they are n’t only formed from solar storm — they are also given a boost by the major planet ’s strong magnetic field , which pulls in institutionalise particles from both the sun and from its synodic month , Io , which is cover in volcanoes . As these volcano spew matter out into space , they are befuddle with enough force play to escape the moon ’s gravitation and terminate up pulled into Jupiter ’s orbit . When these particles are pulled in and accelerate due to the planet ’s massive gravity , they hit Jupiter ’s ambience at in high spirits speed , create the glow impression in the atmospheric gases .
There are still plenty of inquiry about the daybreak on Jupiter though . The researcher are stumped by differences in observation between the Webb and Hubble space scope , which mention at different wavelength but seem to show different patches of brightness .
“ What made these observation even more particular is that we also took word-painting at the same time in the ultraviolet with NASA ’s Hubble Space Telescope , ” said Nichols . “ Bizarrely , the bright light honor by Webb had no genuine counterpart in Hubble ’s pictures . This has leave us scrape up our heads . so as to induce the compounding of brightness seen by both Webb and Hubble , we require to have a combination of in high spirits quantity of very broken - energy particles hitting the standard pressure , which was antecedently think to be impossible . We still do n’t understand how this happen . ”
