On 27 August 2016, the Juno spacecraft made its first close pass around our solar system's largest planet, Jupiter, obtaining insights into its atmosphere and interior that challenge previous assumptions.

The Juno mission, which launched in 2011 and began its first orbit last year, allows scientists to view Jupiter in new ways because of its highly elliptical orbit; it passes over the planet's poles and dives within 5,000 kilometers of its cloud tops. Now two new studies in Science report the results of its initial Jupiter encounters. In one study, Scott Bolton et al. present results from Juno's flight just above the cloud tops.

Images of Jupiter's previously-unseen poles show a chaotic scene of bright oval features, very different from Saturn's polar regions. A time-lapse of Juno images reveals that the ovals are cyclones, some of which reach diameters up to 1,400 kilometers across.

Juno measured the thermal structure of Jupiter's deep atmosphere as it passed over the cloud tops. These data show unexpected structures, which the authors interpret as signs of ammonia welling up from the deep atmosphere and forming giant weather systems.

Measurements of Jupiter's gravitational field were made, which will help understand the structure of the planet's atmosphere and whether it has a solid core, as models have predicted.

Analysis of the gas giant's magnetic field reveals that close to the planet, the field greatly exceeded expectations - it is substantially stronger than models predicted, at 7.766 Gauss, or roughly ten times Earth's magnetic field.

In a second study, John Connerney et al. present data on Jupiter's aurorae and magnetosphere, the region where the planet's magnetic field dominates over the solar wind. Juno encountered the giant planet's bow shock, essentially a stationary shockwave, as it entered the magnetosphere on 24 June 2016.

Since the spacecraft only encountered one bow shock as it approached the planet, compared to multiple encounters on subsequent orbits, this suggests that the magnetosphere was expanding in size at the time, the authors say.

Taking advantage of its unique perspective when positioned above the poles, Juno detected downward-traveling electron beams that shower energy into Jupiter's upper atmosphere, potentially powering the huge aurorae that Juno saw in ultraviolet and infrared images. Intriguingly these electron showers appear to have a different distribution from those that occur on Earth, suggesting a radically different conceptual model of Jupiter's interaction with its space environment, the authors say.

Research Report

The Geophysical Research Letters special collection of 44 papers about the Juno mission is available here

Tweet

Jupiters complex transient auroras
Tokyo, Japan (SPX) May 26, 2017
Combined observations from three spacecraft show that Jupiter's brightest auroral features recorded to date are powered by both the volcanic moon Io and interaction with the solar wind. At Earth, auroras are clearly driven by the solar wind that streams past the planet. But Jupiter's gigantic auroras - magnitudes more powerful than those on Earth - are believed to be mainly driven by facto ... read more

Related Links
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The million outer planets of a star called Sol

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only