Hubble Space Telescope Captures Stunning Auroras on Jupiter
NASA released a new composite video on Thursday, June 30, that shows the auroras on Jupiter. The auroras were captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and show the same phenomenon that occurs on Earth—the light waves produced by the interaction of the planet’s magnetic fields with its atmosphere. The Jupiter auroras, though, reach intensities over 1,000 times brighter than what happens on Earth.
The auroras were observed on May 19. The image of Jupiter itself in the video was taken at a different time by Hubble’s Outer Planet Atmosphere Legacy program, a long-term project that captures global maps of the outer planets each year. Credit: YouTube/NASA, ESA, J. Nichols (University of Leicester), and G. Bacon (STScI)
