Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Aurora on Jupiter

NASA's Juno probe is finally in orbit around Jupiter!
And just a few days ago, NASA posted to their Instagram feed this video of auroras over Jupiter taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Amazing...

Bright auroras on Jupiter! This composite video illustrates the auroras on Jupiter relative to their position on the giant planet. As on Earth, auroras are produced by the interaction of a planet's magnetic field with its atmosphere. The Jupiter auroras observed by our Hubble Space Telescope are some of the most active and brightest ever caught by Hubble, reaching intensities over a thousand times brighter than those seen on Earth. Hubble's sensitivity to ultraviolet light captures the glow of the auroras above Jupiter's cloud top. Fourth of July, our solar-powered Juno spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter after an almost five-year journey. In the evening of July 4, Juno will perform a suspenseful orbit insertion maneuver. Once in Jupiter’s orbit, the spacecraft will circle the Jovian world 37 times during 20 months, skimming to within 3,100 miles (5,000 km) above the cloud tops. This is the first time a spacecraft will orbit the poles of Jupiter, providing new answers to ongoing mysteries about the planet’s core, composition and magnetic fields. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Nichols (University of Leicester), and G. Bacon (STScI) #nasa #space #hubble #hst #astronomy #jupiter #juno #science #planet #nasabeyond #solarsystem
A video posted by NASA (@nasa) on


https://www.instagram.com/nasa/
http://www.nasa.gov/

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