New Delhi (Staff Correspondent): The state-of-the-art James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) of the US space agency NASA has captured amazing pictures and data of the mysterious and extremely powerful aurora on Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. These bright lights are like the Northern Lights seen on Earth, but they have been found to be hundreds of times more powerful than them in energy and brightness.
NASA shared the video of these dancing lights on its official social media platform X (formerly Twitter). The caption read, “NASA Webb has captured new details of the aurora on Jupiter. These lights are much larger in size and hundreds of times more energetic than the aurora on Earth.” This discovery is considered to be an important milestone in the study of Jupiter’s atmosphere and magnetic field. This discovery was carried out under the leadership of Dr. Jonathan Nichols, a scientist at the University of Leicester, UK. This observation was made on December 25, 2023, through the Webb telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). Dr.Nichols excitedly said, “It was a Christmas gift—it surprised me!”
The speed of light surprised scientists
Scientists expected that the brightness of the aurora on Jupiter would gradually decrease—perhaps there would be some change every 15 minutes. But the reality turned out to be quite the opposite. Dr. Nichols said, “We saw the entire auroralregion glowing and bursting moment by moment. This change was sometimes happening in a matter of seconds. This gave us an idea that Jupiter’s magnetic environment is extremely dynamic and mysterious.”
Jupiter’s moon ‘Io’ is the key to this mystery
A major reason for the origin of this powerful aurora is Jupiter’s volcanic moon “Io”. Io’s volcanoes constantly release huge amounts of particles into space. When these particles enter Jupiter’s huge magnetic field, they rapidly gain speed and collide with atmospheric particles, forming bright waves of aurora.
Scientists are surprised by the difference in Hubble and Webb’s pictures
The special thing about this study was that NASA’s second major space telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, also observed Jupiter’s aurora at the same time. But the surprising thing was that some of the extremely bright spots seen by Webb were not seen in Hubble’s pictures. Dr. Nichols said, “This disparity surprised us. It shows that Jupiter’s aurora appears differently at many different wavelengths, which has not yet been fully understood.”
New path open for further research
Now scientists want to do further in-depth research based on this discovery. The team believes that these data will not only help in understanding Jupiter’s magnetic field, but will also help in understanding the atmosphere of other gas giant planets and even exoplanets. This amazing discovery has further increased the curiosity of scientists, and many more secrets related to Jupiter’s shining light and its mysterious atmosphere are expected to be revealed in the times to come.
