NASA Detects Bright Flashes of Light on Jupiter
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:
NASA detects bright flashes of light on Jupiter:
A team of NASA scientists has spotted strange flashes of light known as "transient luminous events" (TLEs) in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter.
[...] For a while, astronomers have theorized their existence in Jupiter's massive, turbulent atmosphere. Thanks to new data collected by the ultraviolet spectrograph instrument (UVS) attached to NASA's Juno spacecraft, a small space probe that's been orbiting the gas giant since 2016, the team was finally able to confirm their presence, as detailed in a new paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
"UVS was designed to characterize Jupiter's beautiful northern and southern lights," Rohini Giles, Juno scientist and lead author, said in a statement. "But we discovered UVS images that not only showed Jovian aurora, but also a bright flash of UV light over in the corner where it wasn't supposed to be."
[...] The flashes resemble TLEs we experience on Earth in numerous ways. According to Giles, these events on Earth, including "sprites," which [are] large-scale electrical charges occurring above thunderstorms, and "elves" (Emission of Light and Very Low Frequency perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources), which are massive halos of light occurring around 100 km above thunderstorms, "appear reddish in color due to their interaction with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere."
See, also: Juno Data Indicates 'Sprites' or 'Elves' Frolic in Jupiter's Atmosphere.
Journal Reference:
Rohini S. Giles, Thomas K. Greathouse, Bertrand Bonfond, et al. Possible Transient Luminous Events observed in Jupiter's upper atmosphere, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (DOI: 10.1029/2020JE006659)
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