{"id":159063,"date":"2023-02-26T19:22:18","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T01:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/jupiters-radiation-creates-a-spectacle-15-times-brighter-than-the-northern-lights"},"modified":"2023-02-26T19:22:18","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T01:22:18","slug":"jupiters-radiation-creates-a-spectacle-15-times-brighter-than-the-northern-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/jupiters-radiation-creates-a-spectacle-15-times-brighter-than-the-northern-lights","title":{"rendered":"Jupiter\u2019s Radiation Creates a Spectacle 15 Times Brighter Than the Northern Lights"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s aurorae.<\/p>\n

\n

Jupiter is well known for its spectacular aurorae<\/a>, thanks in no small part to the Juno<\/a> orbiter and recent images<\/a> taken by the James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> (JWST). Like Earth, these dazzling displays result from charged solar particles interacting with Jupiter\u2019s magnetic field and atmosphere. Over the years, astronomers have also detected faint aurorae in the atmospheres of Jupiter\u2019s largest moons (the \u201cGalilean Moons\u201d<\/a>). These are also the result of interaction, in this case, between Jupiter\u2019s magnetic field and particles emanating from the moons\u2019 atmospheres.<\/p>\n

Detecting these faint aurorae has always been a challenge because sunlight reflected from the moons\u2019 surfaces completely washes out their light signatures. In a series of recent papers<\/a>, a team led by the University of Boston and Caltech (with support from NASA) observed the Galilean Moons as they passed into Jupiter\u2019s shadow. These observations revealed that Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto<\/a> all experience oxygen-aurorae in their atmospheres. Moreover, these aurorae are deep red and almost 15 times brighter than the familiar green patterns we see on Earth.<\/p>\n

The research team included astronomers from the Center for Space Physics<\/a> (CSP) at Boston University, the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences<\/a> (GPS) at Caltech, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics<\/a> (LASP) at the University of Colorado, Earth, and Planetary Science<\/a> at the UC Berkeley, Large Binocular Telescope Observatory<\/a> (LBT), the Southwest Research Institute<\/a> (SwRI), the Planetary Science Institute<\/a> (PSI), the Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam<\/a> (AIP), and NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center<\/a>. The two studies, titled \u201cThe Optical Aurorae of Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto<\/a>\u201d and \u201cIo\u2019s Optical Aurorae in Jupiter\u2019s Shadow<\/a>,\u201d appeared on February 16th in the Planetary Science Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s aurorae. Jupiter is well known for its spectacular aurorae, thanks in no small part to the Juno orbiter and recent images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Like Earth, these dazzling displays result from charged solar particles interacting with Jupiter\u2019s magnetic field and atmosphere. Over the years, astronomers have also detected faint [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":631,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}