Question: Why is your job of looking at auroras around Jupiter important?

Dave Constable answered on 12 Mar 2020:

Great question!

It’s really important as it lets us understand how the Sun affects all the planets in our solar system, and also, if our solar system is unique, or other solar systems are similar to ours. The sun ejects lots of charged particles into the solar system, and when they reach the different planets, they can interact with the atmosphere, by travelling along the planets magnetic field. It’s these charged particles which make aurora when the fall into the atmosphere.

Jupiter and Saturn are really unique, as they have moons which also eject charged particles, and those don’t have as far to travel. My job is to understand how the right conditions can be met for different kinds of aurora to be made, and then we can compare with measurements from telescopes and spacecraft to make sure the simulations are right.

If we understand how the aurora work at planets where we can send spacecraft, then we can make sure the computer simulations I do are correct. Then we can look at planets in different solar systems with telescopes (were we can’t send spacecraft), make any measurements of aurora there and use the simulations to see what is happening there. We think aurora will be generated whenever a planet has a magnetic field, and so, it’s something which could be happening at lots of planets all over the galaxy!