NASA spacecraft spots Earth-sized cyclones on Jupiter
Strength of magnetic field also a surprise
USA TODAY Network
When it comes to Jupiter, the surprises keep on coming.
The first results from NASA’s Juno probe show massive Earthsized cyclones on Jupiter’s poles and a magnetic field even stronger than expected, NASA said in a statement. Findings from data beamed back from Juno’s first flyby last August were published this week in two papers in the journal Science and 44 papers in Geophysical Research Letters.
Researchers assumed the giant gas planet would be relatively uniform and “boring,” but the new data show it’s anything but, the Associated Press reported.
“We knew, going in, that Jupiter would throw us some curves,” Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement. “But now that we are here, we are finding that Jupiter can throw the heat, as well as knuckleballs and sliders.”
Juno launched in 2011 and arrived at the largest planet in our solar system in July. Once every 53 days, Juno swoops closer to the planet and travels from the north to the south pole, offering a close-up glimpse of the planet.
The spacecraft is mapping the planet’s gravity and magnetic fields to learn about the interior makeup of the planet. Researchers hope to use the data to discover whether the planet has a solid core. Among the surprises:
said researchers want to know how the intense storms at the planet’s poles formed and whether they are fleeting or more permanent.
was known that Jupiter has the most intense magnetic field in our solar system, but measurements taken from Juno’s magnetometer investigation indicate it could be even more powerful than originally thought. According to NASA, the magnetic field could be 10 times stronger than the strongest magnetic field found on Earth.
auroras, or its northern and southern lights, appear to work differently from those on Earth.