Planetary heat wave discovered in Jupiter’s atmosphere

Sep. 23 (9

An unexpected “heat wave” has been discovered 700 degrees centigradewhich extends 130,000 kilometers (10 earth diameters) – in the atmosphere of Jupiter.

James O’Donoghue, from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), presented the results this week at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2022 in Granada.

Jupiter’s atmosphere, famous for its characteristic multicolored vortices, is also unexpectedly hot: in fact, it’s hundreds of degrees hotter than models predict. Due to its orbital distance millions of kilometers from the sun, the giant planet receives less than 4% of the amount of sunlight compared to Earth, and its upper atmosphere should theoretically be -70 degrees Celsius. Instead, their cloud tops are measured everywhere at over 400 degrees Celsius.

“Last year we produced, and presented at EPSC2021, the first maps of Jupiter’s upper atmosphere capable of identifying the dominant heat sources,” said O’Donoghue. it’s a statement. “Thanks to these maps, we showed that Jupiter’s auroras were a possible mechanism that could explain these temperatures.”

Like Earth, Jupiter experiences auroras around its poles as a result of the solar wind. However, while Earth’s auroras are transient and only occur when solar activity is intense, Jupiter’s auroras are permanent and vary in intensity. Powerful auroras can heat the region around the poles to more than 700 degrees Celsius, and global winds can redistribute heat around Jupiter.

Looking deeper through their data, O’Donoghue and his team discovered the spectacular “heat wave” just below the Northern Lights and found that it was traveling towards the equator at a speed of thousands of kilometers per hour.

The heat wave was likely triggered by a pulse of enhanced solar wind plasma impacting Jupiter’s magnetic field, which drove the heating of the aurora and forced the hot gases to expand and spill toward the equator.

“While auroras continually deliver heat to the rest of the planet, these heat wave ‘events’ represent a significant additional energy source“, added O’Donoghue. “These findings add to our knowledge of the weather and climate of Jupiter’s upper atmosphere, and are of great help in trying to solve the problem of the ‘energy crisis’ that affects the research of Jupiter. the giant planets.