101. Revealing the source of Jupiter's x-ray auroral flares.
- Author
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Yao Z, Dunn WR, Woodfield EE, Clark G, Mauk BH, Ebert RW, Grodent D, Bonfond B, Pan D, Rae IJ, Ni B, Guo R, Branduardi-Raymont G, Wibisono AD, Rodriguez P, Kotsiaros S, Ness JU, Allegrini F, Kurth WS, Gladstone GR, Kraft R, Sulaiman AH, Manners H, Desai RT, and Bolton SJ
- Abstract
Jupiter's rapidly rotating, strong magnetic field provides a natural laboratory that is key to understanding the dynamics of high-energy plasmas. Spectacular auroral x-ray flares are diagnostic of the most energetic processes governing magnetospheres but seemingly unique to Jupiter. Since their discovery 40 years ago, the processes that produce Jupiter's x-ray flares have remained unknown. Here, we report simultaneous in situ satellite and space-based telescope observations that reveal the processes that produce Jupiter's x-ray flares, showing surprising similarities to terrestrial ion aurora. Planetary-scale electromagnetic waves are observed to modulate electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves, periodically causing heavy ions to precipitate and produce Jupiter's x-ray pulses. Our findings show that ion aurorae share common mechanisms across planetary systems, despite temporal, spatial, and energetic scales varying by orders of magnitude., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).)
- Published
- 2021
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