{"id":15402,"date":"2016-06-30T17:30:36","date_gmt":"2016-06-30T09:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/with-juno-on-jupiters-doorstep-hubble-eyes-glowing-jovian-auroras\/"},"modified":"2016-06-30T17:30:36","modified_gmt":"2016-06-30T09:30:36","slug":"with-juno-on-jupiters-doorstep-hubble-eyes-glowing-jovian-auroras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/with-juno-on-jupiters-doorstep-hubble-eyes-glowing-jovian-auroras\/","title":{"rendered":"With Juno on Jupiter\u2019s doorstep, Hubble eyes glowing Jovian auroras"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ihDFCs3o-gI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Peering a half-billion miles across the solar system, the Hubble Space Telescope has caught a glimpse of brilliant auroras flashing over Jupiter\u2019s north pole as NASA\u2019s Juno orbiter speeds toward the gas giant for a close-up look.<\/p>\n<p>Part of Juno\u2019s multi-pronged scientific campaign is aimed to determining how&nbsp;Jupiter\u2019s auroras form and evolve, along with investigations into the enormous world\u2019s atmosphere and deep interior.<\/p>\n<p>The $1.1 billion mission carries instruments to observe the northern and southern lights in visible, infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths, plus plasma and magnetic field sensors to detect waves of charged particles funneling into Jupiter\u2019s poles, where they collide with atoms of gas and create a glow.<\/p>\n<p>Juno arrives at Jupiter on Monday, when its main engine is due to fire for 35 minutes to steer into orbit around the planet.<\/p>\n<p>The promise of Juno is the simultaneous observation of the constant, but ever-changing, auroras with the flow of high-energy ions and electrons that trigger the polar light shows, according to Fran Bagenal, a co-investigator on the Juno mission from the University of Colorado at Boulder.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&nbsp;have this unique situation of uno flying over the poles, we look down on the aurora in the ultraviolet, the infrared, and in the visible with JunoCam, and then we will be able to also fly through the region where the charged particles are coming in and bombarding the atmosphere,\u201d Bagenal said. \u201cSo we\u2019ll be able to measure the acceleration processes that cause these auroral effects.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hubble is watching Jupiter almost daily for several months to track changes in the planet\u2019s auroras. Scientists will compare the observations with Juno\u2019s measurements.<\/p>\n<p>Ultraviolet images of Jupiter\u2019s northern auroras taken by Hubble\u2019s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph in May and early June were released Thursday.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_16549\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16549\" style=\"width: 675px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-16549\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/hs-2016-24-a-large_web.jpg\" alt=\"This composite image of Jupiter shows the 88,789-mile-diameter (142,984-kilometer) planet in a previous visible light image with the recent ultraviolet view of its polar auroras added. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Nichols (University of Leicester)\" width=\"675\" height=\"675\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/hs-2016-24-a-large_web.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/hs-2016-24-a-large_web-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/hs-2016-24-a-large_web-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/hs-2016-24-a-large_web-768x768.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16549\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This composite image of Jupiter shows the 88,789-mile-diameter (142,984-kilometer) planet in a previous visible light image with the recent far-ultraviolet view of its polar auroras added. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Nichols (University of Leicester)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThese auroras are very dramatic and among the most active I have ever seen,\u201d said Jonathan Nichols from the University of Leicester, UK, and principal investigator of the study. \u201cIt almost seems as if Jupiter is throwing a fireworks party for the imminent arrival of Juno.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Unlike Earth\u2019s auroras, Jupiter\u2019s auroras never stop. They stretch across a swath of Jupiter nearly three times larger than Earth, according to Bagenal.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists want to know what controls the flicker-like motion of Jupiter\u2019s auroras.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs it an internal effect or is it external?\u201d Bagenal said Thursday, adding that physicists will compare Jupiter\u2019s auroras with those of Earth and Saturn to tease out the inner workings of such phenomena.<\/p>\n<p>In another key contrast with Earth, the auroras on Jupiter are not only spawned by the incoming solar wind, a stream of charged particles flowing away from the sun at a million miles per hour.<\/p>\n<p>Particles cast off by Jupiter\u2019s four largest moons, most notably the innermost volcanic satellite Io, are also sucked into the planet\u2019s polar regions by its powerful magnetic field. Material spewed into space from Io\u2019s numerous volcanoes gets pulled into Jupiter\u2019s magnetic field and into the planet\u2019s atmosphere with an electrical current of more than a million amps.<\/p>\n<p>The video posted above shows the footprint of Io near Jupiter\u2019s north pole at the lower left of the image.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere the charged particles that are carrying those currents hit the atmosphere, they make it glow, so you get these spots associated with these moons \u2014 Io, Europa and Ganymede,\u201d Bagenal said.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Peering a half-billion miles across the solar system, the Hubble Space Telescope has caught a glimpse of brilliant auroras flashing over Jupiter\u2019s north pole as NASA\u2019s Juno orbiter speeds toward the gas giant for a close-up look. Part of Juno\u2019s multi-pronged scientific campaign is aimed to determining how&nbsp;Jupiter\u2019s auroras form and evolve, along with investigations [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3664,898,1183,1929,1606,1561,2612],"class_list":["post-15402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-aurora","tag-hubble-space-telescope","tag-jet-propulsion-laboratory","tag-juno","tag-jupiter","tag-planetary-science","tag-swri"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15402"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}