A James Webba Space TelescopeNASA successor in the Khabbla space telescope, Aror at the North Pole of Jupiter. These massive aurors, caused by charged particles that cut into the atmosphere of Jupiter, hundreds of times brighter than our own Aurora Borealis, and for the first time we can see them in more detail thanks to these new images.
Aurors on Earth are caused by solar storms that arise when charged particles from the Sun collide with our upper atmosphere. This charges gases in the atmosphere, which gives them a distinctive color radiance, which we know as northern (or southern) light.
Among the coolest things that we received from the observations of the telescope, is that particles of solar storms are not the only source for Jupiter aurors. A strong magnetic field of the giant planet also draws charged particles from the environment, which includes particles thrown into the atmosphere from the eruptions of the volcano on IO, the moon, orbit -the yupiter. Together, these different sources lead to a more complex auroral system than on Earth.
High sensitivity WEBB NIRCAM (The camera is almost infrared) helps to shed light (pun) on the rapidly changing features of the Auroras of Jupiter. Scientists were able to see the details and bright spots that were not visible with Hubble. Jonathan Nichols, who leads the team at the University of Lester of Great Britain, which captured the images, shared his excitement from the opening from NASA.
Describing the images, he said: “What a Christmas gift it was – it just struck me!” Describing what they learned from the images, he explained: “We wanted to see how quickly Aurora will change, expecting them to disappear puffly and leave, possibly more than a quarter of an hour or so. Instead, we watched the entire area of the auroral region, possibly with light, sometimes varying from the second. ”
The team was able to simultaneously remove the images of Auror from the Hubbla and Webb telescope, which allowed them to directly compare the data with ultraviolet and almost infrared images at the same time. With these comparisons, it became obvious that the Webba telescope captured the details and nuances that Hubble was completely absent. This indicates the strength of the new telescope and raised additional questions about how Aurors function.
Researchers hope that these conclusions will also help them understand the internal work of the Jupiter magnetic field and even help give an idea of how the planet heats up and cools. In the atmosphere of the gas giant there is something to find out, and these images are in just one step.