Pullout of aurora observations on Jupiter

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured new details of the auroras on our Solar System’s largest planet. The dancing lights observed on Jupiter are hundreds of times brighter than those seen on Earth.

These observations of Jupiter’s auroras (shown on the left of the above video) were captured with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) on 25 December 2023 (F335M filter). Scientists found that the emission from the trihydrogen ion, known as H3+, is far more variable than previously believed. H3+ is created by the impact of high energy electrons on molecular hydrogen. Because this emission shines brightly in the infrared, Webb’s instruments are well equipped to observe it. The image on the right shows the planet Jupiter to indicate the location of the observed auroras, which was originally published in 2023 (F164N, F212N, and F360M filters).