Astronomers have detected a heat wave the size of 10 Earth-sized planets spreading through the atmosphere of the gas giant, Jupiter. It reaches 2,400 meters per second away from the north pole of the planet.
And according to RT, this, scientists say, could solve one of the most vexing puzzles about the solar system’s largest planet: Why is it so much hotter than models predict?
The heat wave appears to be the permanent auroras shining at Jupiter’s poles, which could provide additional energy to heat the gas giant to temperatures far beyond what we expect, and most likely, along with intense solar winds, is responsible for the rising heat wave.
“Last year, we produced the first maps of Jupiter’s upper atmosphere able to identify the sources of the prevailing heat,” says astronomer James O’Donogh of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). “With these maps, we showed that Jupiter’s aurora borealis was a potential mechanism that could explain Jupiter’s temperatures. This heat.
The first idea that something strange was going on in Jupiter’s atmosphere came in the 1970s, about 50 years ago.
Jupiter is known to be much farther from the Sun than Earth, nearly five times as far in reality. From that distance, it receives only 4% of the solar radiation that reaches Earth.
The average upper atmosphere temperature should be around -73°C (-99°F). Instead, it is around 420 degrees Celsius, which is comparable to Earth’s upper atmosphere, and much higher than can be explained by solar heating alone.
This means that there must be something else going on on Jupiter. The first heat maps, obtained by O’Donoghue and his colleagues and published last year, suggest a solution to this mystery.
Jupiter is crowned with the strongest aurora borealis in the solar system, glowing with wavelengths invisible to the human eye. We also know that the aurora borealis here on Earth causes significant heating of our atmosphere.
Like Earth’s auroras, Jupiter’s aurora is often formed by the interaction of charged particles, magnetic fields and particles in the planet’s atmosphere.
Also the aurora borealis for the buyer It is permanent, and is generated by particles from its moon Io, which is the most volcanic object in the solar system, which constantly emits sulfur dioxide. This forms jets of plasma around Jupiter, which are directed to the poles through magnetic field lines, where they rain down into the atmosphere.
Previous heat maps of Jupiter revealed hot spots just below the auroral oval, suggesting a connection between the two.
But then it got more interesting, as Io’s contribution doesn’t mean there’s no auroral contribution from the Sun, as O’Donoghue and his colleagues note.
As they were collecting observations of Jupiter and the strange temperatures, a dense solar wind collided with the gas giant. As a result, the team observed an improvement in the auroral heat.
As the hot gas expands, this is likely what sent the heat wave leaking out of the auroral oval and rolling toward the equator at thousands of kilometers per hour.
So, as it spread, it could have caused the atmosphere to heat up by a significant amount.
“While the aurora borealis continually transmits heat to the rest of the planet, these heat wave events represent an important additional source of energy. These findings add to our knowledge of weather and climate in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere and are a huge help in trying to solve the energy crisis,” O’Donoghue explains. , which has plagued research on giant planets.
And Jupiter is not the only solar system hotter than it should be, as Saturn, Neptune and Uranus are hundreds of degrees hotter than solar heating can explain.
And while none of these last planets have auroras on the scale of Jupiter, this discovery represents a method of exploration that may go some way toward solving some of the mysteries of the solar system.