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Aurora with unveiled8/9/2023 ![]() In fact, Jupiter has such an intense radiation environment that it creates aurora on its own moons-and we’ve detected them on Ganymede and Europa. “You would see every color of the rainbow, they would be so extraordinarily bright and vivid,” said Kerrs. The most dramatic, brightest and fastest-moving aurora form on Jupiter, though there’s nowhere to physically stand to see them. “But we’ve detected auroral activity on Venus, Mars, the gas giants and the ice giants-so future explorers may well get to see northern lights and southern lights on other worlds.” ![]() “Mercury lacks anything we can call an atmosphere-it’s just a gaseous envelope, a bit like our Moon,” said Kerrs. ![]() There are aurorae on all the planets and some of the moons in the Solar System-with one exception. Only one planet in the Solar System lacks aurorae NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/UVS/STScI/MODIS/WIC/IMAGE/ULiège 5. Jovian world is 10 times larger than that of Earth, both planets have markedly similar aurora. This illustration depicts ultraviolet polar aurorae on Jupiter and Earth. So go aurora-hunting in late September and in mid to late March (though try to avoid a bright full Moon, which can dull faint aurorae). “So during the equinoxes the exchange of energy from the Sun’s magnetic field into the Earth’s magnetic field is more efficient-so there’s a slight boost to solar wind activity inside the Earth’s magnetosphere. “Around the equinoxes the Earth’s North and South Poles point perpendicular to the direction of the Sun and its magnetic field as well,” said Kerrs. If you have two magnets interacting if their poles are aligned in a certain way then you can enhance electromagnetic activity in the magnetic region around them. Think of the Sun and Earth as bipolar bar magnets. “It’s due to something called the equinoctial effect, which has only been relatively recently understood,” said Kerrs. It’s freezing in January in the Arctic Circle and, in any case, you’ll probably get more frequent displays of aurora in the warmer months of September or March. Aurorae are slightly stronger around the equinoxes “But it’s the white whale of aurora chasing-I’ve never heard it.” Put it in the same cosmic drawer as the ashen light of Venus. “It’s interesting because if you look at myths from Greenland about the northern lights they involve a whistling or crackling sound … there was a strong feeling that the aurora could speak,” said Kerss. It’s tied to the geomagnetic conditions, so linked to the aurora. It’s proposed that around 70 meters above the ground when the circumstances are just right it’s possible for a pocket of warm air to hold a trapped static charge that discharges when the air dissipates. “A team at Aalto University in Finland, led by an acoustic researcher, actually managed to record what we consider to be quite credible recordings of aurora noise,” said Kerrs. ![]() Can aurora-which occur in the ionosphere hundreds of miles up-really make sounds? It seems so. The aurora make a soundįor decades dismissed as a psycho-acoustic phenomena, the snapping, crackling sound of aurora are something that some people know from experience yet have a hard time convincing others. AFP PHOTO / Jonathan NACKSTRAND (Photo credit should read JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images 3. Northern lights (aurora borealis) illuminate the sky over Reinfjorden in Reine, on Lofoten Islands.
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