The mystery of Jupiter's X-ray auroras finally solved
A decades-old mystery as to how Jupiter produces a spectacular burst of X-rays every few minutes.
BY
AMIT MALEWAR
JULY 10, 2021
Credit: ESA/NASA/Yao/Dunn
Massive amounts of energy swirling over Jupiter’s polar regions have been observed. This energy is believed to prompt the giant planet’s powerful auroras. However, Jupiter’s auroras present a powerful mystery.
Jupiter has the most powerful auroras in the solar system: they alone release about gigawatt energy, yet how Jupiter produces a spectacular burst of X-rays every few minutes remains mysterious.
Now, this 40-year old Jupiter’s northern lights mystery has been solved by a research team co-led by UCL (University College London) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
In a new study, scientists combined close-up observations of Jupiter’s environment by NASA’s satellite Juno with simultaneous X-ray measurements from the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton observatory.
More:
https://www.techexplorist.com/mystery-jupiters-x-ray-auroras-finally-solved/40009/
