### James Webb Space Telescope Unveils Stunning Light Show in Jupiter's Auroras

On Christmas Day 2023, scientists harnessed the capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe Jupiter's enchanting auroras, capturing an extraordinary display of lights. Researchers used JWST's advanced infrared cameras to monitor the dynamic features of these auroras, a study published on May 12 in Nature Communications reveals. This new data could provide significant insights into the mechanisms behind the heating and cooling processes of Jupiter's atmosphere.

Study coauthor Jonathan Nichols, an aurora expert at the University of Leicester in the UK, expressed his amazement: "What a Christmas present it was - it just blew me away!" He explained that the team had anticipated observing the auroras fading and brightening slowly over a period of about 15 minutes. Instead, they were surprised to see the auroral region teeming with rapidly changing light, sometimes fluctuating within seconds.

Auroras occur when charged particles colliding with a planet's atmospheric gases cause them to emit light. Jupiter's intense magnetic field traps such particles, including electrons from the solar wind and volcanic eruptions from its moon Io, channeling them toward the planet’s poles to create a light show far more spectacular than Earth's Northern Lights.

In the recent study, researchers closely examined infrared emissions from the trihydrogen cation, H3+, which forms in Jupiter's auroras when energetic electrons interact with hydrogen in the planet’s atmosphere. This molecule emits infrared light, contributing to the cooling of Jupiter's atmosphere, but can be annihilated by fast-moving electrons. Previous ground-based telescopes lacked the sensitivity to precisely measure the lifespan of H3+.

Utilizing JWST’s Near Infrared Camera, the scientists observed unexpected variability in H3+ emissions. Their findings indicated that H3+ persists for about two and a half minutes in Jupiter's atmosphere before destruction. This could help further understand the role of H3+ in atmospheric cooling.

However, the study also yielded perplexing results when the Hubble Space Telescope simultaneously observed Jupiter. While JWST recorded infrared light, Hubble captured ultraviolet emissions from the auroras. Nichols noted, “Bizarrely, the brightest light observed by Webb had no real counterpart in Hubble's pictures. This has left us scratching our heads.”

To explain the brightness seen by both telescopes, the scientists suggest that it involves high quantities of very low-energy particles hitting the atmosphere, a scenario previously deemed impossible. Despite these puzzling findings, the team plans to investigate this unexpected pattern further using additional data from JWST and NASA's Juno spacecraft, which has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016.