Jupiter’s Auroras

Fig. 1 Bright patches glow in Jupiter’s ultraviolet aurora observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: Sarah Badman (Lancaster University), NASA, ESA

Having just posted an epistle, the most complete paper ever published on Jupiter, I was reminded of one observed feature which I had not addressed. An article on Eos , a geological blog site, by Mark Zastro, refers to several papers in the Journal of Geophysical Research, based on observations of Jupiter’s auroras by the Extreme UltraViolet Spectroscope on the Hisaki satellite. Although it is known that Jupiter has almost continuous auroral rings at both its north and south poles. The new observations indicate short brightnings of the auroras, “less than 10 hours”, extending well into the mid-latitudes. Professors Kimura, Tao, et al. maintain that these short brightenings are driven by internal events, e.g. plasma injection. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2015JA021272

Fig. 2 Vortex of helium ions exiting the great Red Spot, striking the circulating plasma cloud, currently called the inner radiation belt.

In the paper Jupiter – Solid or Gaseous? Ask Juno © John Ackerman 10/2015, I maintain that Jupiter and all the giant planets are solid, frozen, highly deuterated Methane Gas Hydrate bodies, and that an impact on Jupiter 6,000 years BP triggered an enormous fusion explosion, the residual of which is still burning in the crater at 22 deg. South Latitude, producing high energy helium ions causing the atmospheric temperature excess, the multiple zonal vortices, the magnetic field and the auroras of Jupiter. The heat and radioactive particles from the fusion are swept westward as a vortex beneath the cloud-tops due to Jupiter’s rapid rotation, appearing some 50,000 km to the west as the Great Red Spot. In its final stages, the reaction is d+p -> ³He⁺ + gamma. More than 10³⁰ helium ions per second, with half-lives of 400 years, are carried through the primary vortex at relativistic velocities (>20,000 km/s) and exit the planet through the Great Red Spot, colliding with and supplementing the vast tilted radiation plasma ion belt around Jupiter, which is the source of its magnetic field. Those that pass through the plasma belt are captured by the magnetic field, which is exterior to the belt, and follow the field lines to the poles forming the auroras. The auroral ovals are persistent because the fusion reaction is continuous.

Because Jupiter is solid, there is no active internal mechanism to generate the magnetic field. It is due strictly to the helium ion plasma circling the planet. As a result, the helium ions comprising the plasma are quickly lost into space, but are being completely replaced every second by the fusion reaction. These lost helium ions were detected by Ulysses, Cassini and knocked out the circuits of the Galileo orbiter some 20 times even though it never got closer than 11 Jupiter radii.

As a result, the fusion reaction can be understood as an electric current generator, the flow of positively charged helium ions, that is continuously producing Jupiter’s magnetic field. When the reaction ceases, the the magnetic field will virtually disappear overnight.

The auroral brightening is due to the sporadic release of heavy elements by the fusion reaction. These are released as ions and also exit Jupiter via the Great Red Spot. They move more slowly than the helium ions but follow the same paths, some enter the plasma cloud but some pass through it and are captured in the magnetic field and flow to the poles, striking within the auroral ovals.