James Webb capta imagens de auroras na atmosfera de Júpiter

Notícias ao Minuto Brasil

james webb, aurora

Transcript

00:00NASA's James Webb Space Telescope

00:03has imaged an enormous display of auroras

00:06on our solar system's largest planet, Jupiter.

00:09These vibrant dancing lights

00:12are hundreds of times brighter than those seen on Earth

00:15and are packed with details

00:17about how the planet's atmosphere behaves

00:19and what it is composed of.

00:21Auroras are created when high-energy particles

00:25enter a planet's atmosphere

00:27and collide with atoms or molecules of gas.

00:30At Jupiter, these charged particles

00:33come from either the nearby solar wind,

00:36which is a barrage of charged particles unleashed by the Sun,

00:40or material thrown into space

00:42by its own volcanically active moon Io.

00:46Jupiter's powerful magnetic field

00:49grabs particles from all these sources,

00:52accelerating them to tremendous speeds.

00:55Some of these particles then slam into the planet's atmosphere,

00:59exciting the gas and causing it to glow.

01:02Webb's near-infrared camera

01:05has captured these fast-moving auroras in great detail,

01:09revealing features that have previously alluded astronomers.

01:12These particular observations were designed to see

01:16how quickly Jupiter's auroras change,

01:19expecting them to fade in and out slowly,

01:22perhaps over a quarter of an hour.

01:25Yet, the whole auroral region

01:27was seen to be fizzing and popping with light,

01:30sometimes varying by the second.

01:32This colossal shifting display

01:35gives us unique clues

01:37into the composition of Jupiter's atmosphere

01:39and how its magnetosphere operates.

01:42To get a more comprehensive view of these aurora,

01:45NASA's Hubble Space Telescope simultaneously took pictures

01:49in the ultraviolet.

01:51By comparing the timing and duration of flashes

01:55seen in both sets of images,

01:57astronomers can work out how Jupiter's atmosphere

02:00reacts to the onslaught of particles.

02:03But bizarrely, the brightest light seen by Webb in the infrared

02:07had no real counterpart in Hubble's pictures taken using ultraviolet light.

02:13In order to cause the overall brightness

02:16seen by both Webb and Hubble,

02:18we need to have a combination of high quantities

02:21of very low energy particles hitting the atmosphere,

02:25which was previously thought to be impossible.

02:27This has left many new and exciting questions to be answered.

02:32Otherwise, the lights appeared to be answered.

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