NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Captures Glowing Aurora in Vivid Detail On Neptune For the First Time
The James Webb Space Telescope has provided the world with multiple space breakthroughs. Another one recently joined the list, stated Science Alert. The phenomenon came to everyone's notice because of the equipment's powerful near-infrared spectrometer. Findings regarding this phenomenon have been published in Nature Astronomy.
JWST captured Neptune glowing amidst near-infrared light. This glow produced an aurora, which in turn became the first of its kind to be recorded on Neptune. The discovery was meaningful because, before this spotting, apart from Neptune, auroras had been observed around every planet in the Solar System. This finding all but confirms that auroras are a widespread phenomenon, which showcases interactions that facilitate between the sun and the planet.
Researchers further noted that auroras change based on which planet they make an appearance on. For Earth, the auroras feature a range of colors, which come into being after the solar wind particle clashes with Earth's magnetic field. These particles later fall into the upper atmosphere, where the visual usually facilitates itself. Jupiter has been observed to have the most energetic auroras. The Jupiter auroras appear to have traces of ultraviolet light. The four largest moons of this planet also have auroras.
Saturn and Mars produce auroras similar to Jupiter, though a little less in intensity. Venus' auroras are like Earth's and exhibit a green color. Mercury's auroras, despite having no atmosphere to survive, came into existence due to X-ray fluorescence produced by the reaction between solar particles and minerals present on the planet's surface. For a long time, researchers were unable to determine whether Uranus and Neptune had any auroras. This is because these planets are far away from the sun, and hence the doubt was there that the particles associated with the planet possibly wouldn't interact with solar wind.
In 2023, a team examined archival data of the planet and confirmed that there are infrared auroras at the Uranian equator. Now, JWST has spotted auroras on Neptune. At first, the telescope garnered the spectrum of Neptune's atmosphere. This observation showcased clear evidence of the trihydrogen cation (H3+), a component associated with auroras in Neptune's atmosphere. A team led by Henrik Melin of Northumbria University then began to track the concentration of this component in the planet's skies. Based on the spots where the concentration was higher, researchers detected the aurora.
The observation also showcased why researchers had such a difficult time spotting the aurora in Neptune. The examinations indicated that in the last few decades, the planet had significantly cooled down. Colder temperatures result in fainter auroras. This aurora gives them more evidence of the distinct nature of this phenomenon across all planets. Researchers are hopeful that these findings will give them more insights into the atmosphere interaction in other bodies of the galaxy. "Since the most commonly detected type of extrasolar planet is Neptune-sized, and as Neptune lacks the extreme seasons of Uranus," the researchers wrote in the paper, "these observations provide a new diagnostic to probe atmosphere-magnetosphere interactions on the most common-sized worlds in our galaxy."