Dark ovals in Jupiter's polar haze, visible only at UV wavelengths, were first noticed 25 years ago, then ignored. A new study shows that these dark UV ovals are common, appearing at the south pole in 75% of Hubble Space Telescope images taken since 2015. They appear less often at the north pole.
Dark ovals in Jupiter 's polar haze, visible only at UV wavelengths, were first noticed 25 years ago, then ignored. A new study shows that these dark UV ovals are common, appearing at the south pole in 75% of Hubble Space Telescope images taken since 2015. They appear less often at the north pole. The scientists theorize that a magnetic vortex generated in the ionosphere stirs up and concentrates the hydrocarbon haze that blankets the poles.
The dark UV ovals hint at unusual processes taking place in Jupiter's strong magnetic field that propagate down to the poles and deep into the atmosphere, far deeper than the magnetic processes that produce the auroras on Earth.Dark UV ovals were first detected by Hubble in the late 1990s at the north and south poles and subsequently at the north pole by the Cassini spacecraft that flew by Jupiter in 2000, but they drew little attention.
Wong and Tsubota consulted two experts on planetary atmospheres -- Tom Stallard at Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the UK and Xi Zhang at UC Santa Cruz -- to determine what could cause these areas of dense haze.
"The haze in the dark ovals is 50 times thicker than the typical concentration," said Zhang,"which suggests it likely forms due to swirling vortex dynamics rather than chemical reactions triggered by high-energy particles from the upper atmosphere. Our observations showed that the timing and location of these energetic particles do not correlate with the appearance of the dark ovals.
Astronomy Space Exploration Astrophysics Dark Matter NASA Extrasolar Planets Space Telescopes
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