Jupiter's Northern Lights Eight Times Brighter Than Normal When Struck by Giant Solar Storm

Credit: NASA

As part of the mission, Juno will investigate Jupiter’s relationship with the Sun and the solar wind by studying its magnetic field, magnetosphere and aurora. The UCL team hope to find out how the X-rays form by collecting complementary data using the European Space Agency’s X-ray space observatory, XMM-Newton, and NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory.

“Comparing new findings from Jupiter with what is already known for Earth will help explain how space weather is driven by the solar wind interacting with Earth’s magnetosphere. New insights into how Jupiter’s atmosphere is influenced by the Sun will help us characterise the atmospheres of exoplanets, giving us clues about whether a planet is likely to support life as we know it,” said study supervisor, Professor Graziella Branduardi-Raymont, UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory.

The impact of solar storms on Jupiter’s aurora was tracked by monitoring the X-rays emitted during two 11 hour observations in October 2011 when an interplanetary coronal mass ejection was predicted to reach the planet from the Sun. The scientists used the data collected to build a spherical image to pinpoint the source of the X-ray activity and identify areas to investigate further at different time points.

William Dunn added, “In 2000, one of the most surprising findings was a bright ‘hot spot’ of X-rays in the aurora which rotated with the planet. It pulsed with bursts of X-rays every 45 minutes, like a planetary lighthouse. When the solar storm arrived in 2011, we saw that the hot spot pulsed more rapidly, brightening every 26 minutes. We’re not sure what causes this increase in speed but, because it quickens during the storm, we think the pulsations are also connected to the solar wind, as well as the bright new aurora.”

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MSFC/R.Elsner et al.; Illustration: CXC/M.Weiss

Another study out today, led by Tomoki Kimura from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and co-authored by the UCL researchers, reports that the X-ray aurora responds to quieter ‘gusts’ of solar wind, deepening this connection between Jupiter and the solar wind.

The UCL-led study also involved researchers from NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Boston University, Observatoire de Paris, MIT, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), University of Southampton, University of Leicester, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and University of Michigan. It was kindly funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), NASA, the Natural and Environmental Research Council (NERC) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

 

 

Rebecca Caygill