40-Year- Old Mystery Over Jupiter’s X-Ray Aurora – Finally Solved

Overlaid images of Jupiter’s pole from NASA’s satellite Juno and NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope. Left shows a projection of Jupiter’s Northern X-ray aurora (purple) overlaid on a visible Junocam image of the North Pole. Right shows the Southern counterpart. Credit: NASA Chandra/Juno Wolk/Dunn

A decades-old mystery as to how Jupiter produces a spectacular burst of X-rays every few minutes is finally solved.

The X-rays are part of Jupiter’s aurora—bursts of visible and invisible light that occur when charged particles interact with the planet’s atmosphere. A similar phenomenon occurs on Earth, creating the northern lights, but Jupiter’s is much more powerful, releasing hundreds of gigawatts of energy, enough to briefly power all of human civilization.

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Source: https://www.messagetoeagle.com/40-year-old-mystery-over-jupiters-x-ray-aurora-finally-solved/