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July 11 (UPI) – A new analysis of the Juno mission data suggests that Jupiter's aurora is powered by an alternating current and not by a direct current.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, has a dawn of a radiant power of 100 terawatts, or 100 billion kilowatts. It is the brightest aurora of the solar system.
Like the auroras of the Earth, Jupiter's play of light is centered around its poles. The auroras are fed by a system of electric currents crossing the magnetosphere of the gas giant.
"Jupiter's electrical power systems are powered by the huge centrifugal forces of Jupiter's rapidly rotating magnetosphere," said Joachim Saur, a researcher at the University of Cologne, in a press release. "Because of the fast rotation of Jupiter (a day on Jupiter lasts only ten hours), the centrifugal forces move the ionized gas into the magnetic field of Jupiter, which generates the electric currents."
When gas particles in Jupiter's upper atmosphere are excited by charged particles generated by interactions between solar winds and the magnetosphere of the planet, a bright, swirling glow occurs.
In the past three years, NASA's Juno probe has surrounded Jupiter. Its orbit passes on both poles. Juno recently used its instruments to measure direct electrical currents through the magnetosphere of Jupiter. Analysis of Juno's data showed that the Birkeland currents, direct currents along the magnetic field lines of the gas giant, totaled 50 million amperes.
According to the new study, published this week in the journal Nature Astronomy, the direct currents measured by Juno can not fully explain the power of the aurora of Jupiter. Scientists have therefore concluded that alternative and turbulent currents of alfvenic helped fuel the polar light shows of the gas giant.
"These observations, combined with other measurements from the Juno spacecraft, show that alternative currents play a much larger role in generating Jupiter's aurora than the DC system." said Saur.
Recent research has revealed new ways to differentiate the aurora of Jupiter from the Earth's.
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