Hubble Revealed Savage, Never-Ending Auroras on Jupiter

NASA’s Hubble telescope captured Jupiter’s savage, perpetual UV auroras in a stunning time-lapse, revealing light shows hundreds of times more powerful than Earth’s. Read how these observations, synchronised with the Juno mission, are helping scientists crack the secrets of the largest planet’s 20,000x stronger magnetic field.

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured some of the most dramatic and powerful auroras ever seen on Jupiter, revealing a spectacular and continuous light show above the planet’s poles.

These observations, taken on May 19, 2016 (as opposed to 2014, when a visible light image was taken), provide a critical ‘tag-team’ preview for the arrival of the Juno spacecraft.

The aurorae, which were photographed using the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) in far-ultraviolet light, reveal a phenomenon far more intense than Earth’s Northern Lights.

While Earth’s aurorae are transient and primarily driven by solar storms, Jupiter’s never cease and are hundreds of times more energetic.

The Power of Jupiter’s Magnetosphere

The ongoing light display—which covers an area larger than Earth—is a testament to Jupiter’s overwhelming magnetic force.

The gas giant’s magnetosphere is 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s and acts as a massive particle accelerator, capturing charged particles from two primary sources:

1. The Solar Wind: A stream of charged particles constantly ejected from the Sun.
2. Volcanic Moon Io: Jupiter’s closest major moon, Io, is the most volcanically active world in the Solar System, spewing tons of material that gets caught up in the planet’s magnetic field.

These highly energetic particles are channeled along Jupiter’s magnetic field lines, slamming into the atmosphere near the magnetic poles and causing the atmospheric gases to glow vividly.

Synchronization with Juno

The Hubble observation programme was perfectly timed to support the final approach of NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which successfully entered orbit around Jupiter in early July 2016.

“These auroras are very dramatic and among the most active I have ever seen,” said Jonathan Nichols from the University of Leicester, U.K., and principal investigator of the study. “It almost seems as if Jupiter is throwing a firework party for the imminent arrival of Juno.”

While Hubble provided the global, ultraviolet view of the upper atmosphere, Juno was positioned to directly sample the properties of the solar wind and the charged particles themselves near Jupiter.

This collaborative data gathering is essential for determining precisely how Jupiter’s auroras respond to changes in the surrounding space environment.

The final composite image of the aurora was created by overlaying the ultraviolet light observations from May 2016 onto a separate visible-light image of Jupiter taken in April 2014 by Hubble’s Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program.

For a look at the dynamic movement of the Jupiter aurora captured by Hubble, watch this clip: Hubble Time-Lapse of Aurora on Jupiter (May 19, 2016).

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