For the last four decades, scientists have been unable to explain how Jupiter produces bursts of X-rays every few minutes. Now, scientists from the University College London might have found the answer to this mystery.
The X-rays are a part of the Gas Giant’s aurora, visible bursts of light that appear when charged particles interact with its atmosphere. It is the same phenomenon that creates the northern lights on Earth. However, Jupiter’s spectacles are more powerful. They release hundreds of gigawatts of energy, which is far more than what one power station on our planet can produce in a few days.
Blasts after every 27 minutes
In a new study, scientists managed to observe Jupiter with the aid of NASA’s Juno satellite. The X-ray measurements were made using ESA’s XMM-Newton observatory. Alongside the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the researchers found that X-ray flares occurred due to frequent vibrations of the planet’s magnetic field lines.
Due to these vibrations, waves of plasma are created, where particles are stripped of their electrons, sending heavy particles to the magnetic lines until they interact with Jupiter’s atmosphere and release X-rays. This process takes place at both the north and south poles. After every 27 minutes, a new blast is spewed into the universe, originating from the massive volcanoes on the planet’s moon Io.
Same process for other planets?
The Gas Giant’s magnetic field is around 20,000 times stronger than our planet and therefore its magnetosphere is extremely huge.
“We have seen Jupiter producing X-ray aurora for four decades, but we didn’t know how this happened. We only knew they were produced when ions crashed into the planet’s atmosphere”, said Dr. William Dunn, from UCL’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory.
“Now we know these ions are transported by plasma waves – an explanation that has not been proposed before, even though a similar process produces Earth’s own aurora. It could, therefore, be a universal phenomenon, present across many different environments in space.”
Since the process has been identified, it can come in handy for other planets including Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
