Friday, March 30, 2007
Aurora on Jupiter
X-ray Aurora as seen from Chandra. Image credit NASA/CXC/SwRI/R.Gladstone et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage (AURA/STScI)There hasn't been much aurora action here on Earth, except for an unexpected aurora in New Zealand. However, there has been a lot of aurora action on Jupiter. Both Jupiter and Saturn have active polar regions, and part of the New Horizons mission is to look at Jupiters magnetosphere. In preparation for the New Horizons flyby of Jupiter, several telescopes, including the X-ray telescope Chandra, were turned on Jupiter. Chandra imaged the aurora in X-rays, and these were combined with the New Horizon imgaes to make the image above (read more details here). There is also a nice animation.
# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 8:06 am 
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
