Buzz
This striking composite image merges a 2014 optical snapshot from the Hubble Space Telescope with ultraviolet data from 2016, showing the planet's captivating auroras. Courtesy of NASA/ESA.While travelers on Earth journey thousands of miles to witness the Northern Lights, such as in Canada or Iceland, the Hubble Space Telescope has captured new, distant images of auroras at Jupiter's poles.
The immense gas giant recently displayed a brilliant light show in its upper atmosphere. The dazzling ultraviolet glow resulted from solar wind — energetic particles emitted by the sun — colliding with Jupiter's atmosphere and interacting with gas atoms.
The particles that fuel Jupiter's auroras don't only come from solar storms and cosmic debris like Earth's do. The planet's powerful magnetic field also draws in particles from eruptions on Jupiter’s volcanic moon, Io. Unlike Earth's temporary displays, Jupiter’s auroras are continuous and far stronger, hundreds of times more intense than those on Earth.
Hubble is currently studying the auroras to understand how varying solar wind conditions influence them. This research comes at the perfect time, as NASA's Juno spacecraft is poised to enter a polar orbit around Jupiter on Monday, July 4, where it will investigate the properties of solar winds and the atmosphere of Jupiter itself.
"These auroras are extraordinarily vivid and among the most intense I have ever observed," says Jonathan Nichols, lead author, in a press release. "It almost feels as if Jupiter is preparing a fireworks display in celebration of Juno's upcoming arrival."
Auroras dancing across Jupiter's poles were first photographed in 2007 while the New Horizons probe was en route to Pluto and beyond. You can watch the latest ultraviolet auroras in motion through short videos available on Hubble's website.
Jupiter's third-largest moon, Io, is the most volcanically active object in the solar system, with sulfur plumes shooting up to 190 miles (300 kilometers) high.
