Tag Archives: Jupiters

Jupiter hosts the brightest and most spectacular auroras in the Solar System. Near its poles, these shimmering lights offer a glimpse into how the planet interacts with the solar wind and moons swept by Jupiter’s magnetic field. Unlike Earth’s northern lights, the largest moons of Jupiter create their own auroral signatures in the planet’s atmosphere — a phenomenon that Earth’s …

During the wee hours of this morning (Aug. 31), a boxy spacecraft with solar wings in the shape of crosses flew right by Venus — if all went according to plan. That probe is the European Space Agency’s (ESA) JUICE (“Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer”), which is on its way to do just what you might expect after hearing its name. …

Jupiter holds secrets at its heart that continue to puzzle scientists. The largest planet in our Solar System has what researchers call a “dilute core” – a central region that doesn’t have sharp boundaries like once expected. Instead of a distinct rocky centre surrounded by layers of gas, Jupiter’s core gradually blends into the hydrogen-rich layers above it, creating a …

Jupiter holds secrets at its heart that continue to puzzle scientists. The largest planet in our Solar System has what researchers call a “dilute core,” a central region that doesn’t have sharp boundaries like once expected. Instead of a distinct rocky centre surrounded by layers of gas, Jupiter’s core gradually blends into the hydrogen-rich layers above it, creating a smooth …

The mystery at Jupiter’s heart has taken a fresh twist – as new research suggests a giant impact may not have been responsible for the formation of its core. It had been thought that a colossal collision with an early planet containing half of Jupiter’s core material could have mixed up the central region of the gas giant, enough to …

When searching for the unknown, classic physics wisdom holds that a bigger detector boosts the chances of discovery. A physicist is taking that advice to heart, advancing a bold plan to use none other than Ganymede—Jupiter’s largest moon—as a dark matter detector on an astronomical scale. Dark matter refers to the “invisible” mass that supposedly constitutes 85% of the universe. …

When NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft sailed past Jupiter in 1979, it recorded a stunning and unusual phenomenon—plasma waves as it crossed the planet’s bow shock. This haunting sound, captured 46 years ago, is a striking reminder of the vast and mysterious world that lies at the heart of our solar system. The recording, which is not quite Holst’s The Planets …

A long-standing mystery about the presence of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) on Jupiter’s icy ocean moon Europa may be closer to being solved. Hydrogen peroxide forms as a byproduct when energetic particles break apart water molecules, leading to the recombination of OH radicals — highly reactive molecules with unpaired electrons. H2O2 was first observed on Europa by the Galileo Near Infrared …

NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which launched in 2011 to investigate Jupiter’s origin and evolution, travels through the solar system’s most intense planetary radiation fields. When the spacecraft’s JunoCam—a color, visible-light camera—began to suffer the consequences in December 2023, the mission team back on Earth had to think of a remote fix before they lost their chance to photograph the Jovian moon, …

Since entering Jupiter’s orbit in 2016, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been hard at work unveiling the many mysteries of our solar system’s largest planet. And its latest discovery may be one of the most intriguing yet: an entirely new type of plasma wave near Jupiter’s poles.  In a paper published Wednesday in Physical Review Letters, astronomers describe an unusual pattern …