James Webb capta imagens de auroras na atmosfera de Júpiter
Categoria
🗞
NotíciasTranscrição
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.
02:32launching servers
02:333
02:34aviation
02:341
02:36ich