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JUNO, a NASA space probe orbiting the planet Jupiter, recently captured images of colorful bursts of lightning-like electricity in Jupiter’s atmosphere. For the first time, these unpredictable and extremely short bright flashes, also known as transient light events, or TLEs, are seen in another world.
The discovery of these brilliant flashes of light suggests that either “goblins” or “elves” may be dancing in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere.
Giles, a Juno scientist and the lead author of the article, said: “Juno’s ultraviolet spectrograph (UVS) instrument was designed to characterize Jupiter’s beautiful northern and southern lights. But we discovered UVS images that showed not only the Jovian aurora, but also a bright flash of UV light in the corner where it wasn’t supposed to be. The more our team looked into the matter, the more we realized that Juno could have detected a TLE on Jupiter. “
Almost like a jellyfish, sprites are transient light events triggered by lightning bursts from thunderstorms far below.
Elves (short for Light emission and very low frequency perturbations due to sources of electromagnetic pulses), on the other hand, appear as a flattened disk that glows in the upper atmosphere of the Earth. They too light up the sky for a few milliseconds, but can grow larger than sprites – up to 320 kilometers on Earth.
Giles said, “Their colors are also distinctive. On Earth, sprites and elves appear reddish due to their interaction with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere. But on Jupiter, the upper atmosphere is made up mostly of hydrogen, so they would probably appear blue or pink. “
On Jupiter, these 11 large-scale light events were detected in a region where thunderstorms are known to form. They were simply mega lightning bolts because they were found about 300 kilometers above the altitude where most of Jupiter’s lightning strikes, its water cloud layer, form.
Giles said, “We are continuing to look for more telltale signs of elves and goblins every time Juno performs a scientific pass. Now that we know what we are looking for, it will be easier to find them on Jupiter and other planets. And comparing Jupiter’s spirits and elves to those here on Earth will help us better understand electrical activity in planetary atmospheres. “
Journal reference:
- Rohini S. Giles et al. Possible transient light events observed in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere. DOI: 10.1029 / 2020JE006659
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