See it: Rare video from Webb telescope shows Aurora lights on Jupiter
Jupiter – being a giant planet 11 times wider than Earth – has massive auroras, hundreds of times more energetic than those we see on our planet. On Dec. 25, 2023, a team of scientists used Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to photograph Jupiter's fast-moving auroras in an attempt to see how quickly they evolve.
NASA's Webb telescope captured vibrant dancing aurora on Jupiter
Images captured in 2023 by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope of the massive aurora lights on Jupiter reveal unexpected activity in the gas giant's atmosphere. The image on the right shows the planet Jupiter to indicate the location of the observed auroras, which was originally published in 2023.(Video: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI)
Space telescopes don't take holidays off, which is why NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's powerful instruments were trained on Jupiter on Christmas Day 2023, capturing some of the most detailed images yet of the dancing aurora lights on the gas giant, a new study revealed this week.
Aurora lights are created from space weather as high-energy particles enter a planet's atmosphere. On Earth, we have auroras known as the Northern and Southern Lights at the poles. However, Jupiter – being a giant planet 11 times wider than Earth – has massive auroras, hundreds of times more energetic than those we see on our planet. Jupiter also has an additional source for auroras besides solar wind, as charged particles from its moon Io are constantly crashing into its parent planet.
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On Dec. 25, 2023, a team of scientists led by Jonathan Nichols from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom used Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to photograph Jupiter's fast-moving auroras in an attempt to see how quickly they evolve. Their findings were published this week in the journal Nature Communications.
These observations of Jupiter’s auroras, taken at a wavelength of 3.36 microns (F335M) were captured with Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on Dec. 25, 2023. Scientists found that the emission from trihydrogen cation, known as H3+, is far more variable than previously believed. H3+ is created by the impact of high energy electrons on molecular hydrogen. Because this emission shines brightly in the infrared, Webb’s instruments are well equipped to observe it.
(NASA, ESA, CSA, Jonathan Nichols (University of Leicester), Mahdi Zamani (ESA/Webb) / NASA)
"What a Christmas present it was – it just blew me away!" Nichols said in a NASA release. "We wanted to see how quickly the auroras change, expecting them to fade in and out ponderously, perhaps over a quarter of an hour or so. Instead, we observed the whole auroral region fizzing and popping with light, sometimes varying by the second."
The team found emissions of trihydrogen cation (H3+) more variable than previously estimated and discovered something new and mysterious about Jupiter's auroras.
The brightest areas seen by Webb's NIRCam were invisible to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The two images below show the side-by-side observations from Webb (left) and Hubble's ultraviolet light on the right.
Nichols said this discrepancy left the team scratching their heads.
"In order to cause the combination of brightness seen by both Webb and Hubble, we need to have a combination of high quantities of very low-energy particles hitting the atmosphere, which was previously thought to be impossible," he said.
These observations of Jupiter’s auroras (shown on the left of the above image) at 3.36 microns (F335M) were captured with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on Dec. 25, 2023.
(NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI / NASA)
More research is needed to understand the implications of Jupiter's space environment, including using data from NASA's Juno spacecraft, which is currently orbiting the Jovian system.