An unexpected 700 degree Celsius “heat wave” stretching 130,000 kilometers (10 Earth diameters) in Jupiter’s atmosphere has been detected. James O’Donoghue of the Japanese 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 predicted. Due to its orbital distance of millions of kilometers from the sun, the giant planet receives less than 4% of the sun’s radiation compared to Earth, and its upper atmosphere should theoretically be a frigid -70 degrees Celsius. Instead, its cloud tops are measured at over 400 degrees Celsius everywhere.
“Last year we produced – and presented at EPSC2021 – the first maps of Jupiter’s upper atmosphere capable of identifying the dominant heat sources,” said Dr. O’Donoghue. “Thanks to these maps, we have shown that Jupiter’s auroras are a possible mechanism that could explain these temperatures.”
Just like Earth, Jupiter experiences auroras around its poles as a result of the solar wind. However, while Earth’s auroras are transient and only appear during intense solar activity, Jupiter’s auroras are permanent and have variable intensity. The powerful auroras can heat the region around the poles to over 700 degrees Celsius, and global winds can disperse the heat globally around Jupiter.
dr Looking more closely at their data, O’Donoghue and his team spotted the spectacular “heatwave” just below the northern aurora, noting that it was moving towards the equator at a rate of thousands of kilometers per hour.
The heat wave was likely triggered by a pulse of enhanced plasma from the solar wind acting on Jupiter’s magnetic field, amplifying the heating of the auroras and forcing hot gases to expand and erupt toward the equator.
“While the auroras continue to provide heat to the rest of the planet, these heatwave ‘events’ represent an additional significant source of energy,” added Dr. O’Donoghue added. “These results add to our knowledge of the weather and climate of the upper atmosphere on Jupiter and are of great help in trying to solve the ‘energy crisis’ problem that has plagued the study of giant planets.”
Jupiter’s atmosphere heats up under the solar wind
Provided by the Europlanet Media Center
Citation: Planetary-scale “heat wave” detected in Jupiter’s atmosphere (2022, September 23), retrieved September 24, 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-09-planetary-scale-jupiter-atmosphere .html
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