SwRI Group Identifies Big Swirling Waves At Edge Of Jupiter’s Magnetosphere

A group led by Southwest Analysis Institute (SwRI) and The College of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) has discovered that NASA’s Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter regularly encounters big swirling waves on the boundary between the photo voltaic wind and Jupiter’s magnetosphere. The waves are an essential course of for transferring vitality and mass from the photo voltaic wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the Solar, to planetary area environments.

Jake Montgomery, a doctoral pupil within the joint area physics program between UTSA and SwRI, famous that these phenomena happen when a big distinction in velocity varieties throughout the boundary between two areas in area. This may create a swirling wave, or vortex, on the interface that separates a planet’s magnetic area and the photo voltaic wind, referred to as the magnetopause. These Kelvin-Helmholtz waves are usually not seen to the bare eye however may be detected by way of instrument observations of plasma and magnetic fields in area. Plasma — a elementary state of matter made up of charged particles, ions and electrons — is ubiquitous throughout the universe.

“Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities are a elementary bodily course of that happens when photo voltaic and stellar winds work together with planetary magnetic fields throughout our photo voltaic system and all through the universe,” Montgomery stated. “Juno noticed these waves throughout lots of its orbits, offering conclusive proof that Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities play an lively position within the interplay between the photo voltaic wind and Jupiter.”

Montgomery is the lead creator of a research printed in Geophysical Analysis Letters that makes use of information from a number of Juno devices, together with its magnetometer and the SwRI-built Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE).

“Juno’s intensive time close to Jupiter’s magnetopause has enabled detailed observations of phenomena resembling Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities on this area,” stated Dr. Robert Ebert, a employees scientist at SwRI who additionally serves as an adjoint professor at UTSA. “This photo voltaic wind interplay is essential as it may possibly transport plasma and vitality throughout the magnetopause, into Jupiter’s magnetosphere, driving exercise inside that system.”