Chandra Release - March 2, 2005

Visual Description: Jupiter

 On the left panel in this graphic is a Chandra X-ray Observatory image of Jupiter.  This part of the image is reminiscent of a luminous light blue circular shape with a fuzzy texture and bright white caps at the north and south poles, creating a shimmering image of the planet. Extended monitoring by Chandra showed that the auroral X-rays are caused by highly charged particles crashing into the atmosphere above Jupiter's poles.  The accompanying artist’s concept on the right illustrates how Jupiter's unusually frequent and spectacular auroral activity is produced. The illustration looks like a line drawing, partially filled with gold and white dots, of an octopus swimming on its side.  Jupiter's strong, rapidly rotating magnetic field (the light lines) generates strong electric fields in the space around the planet. Particles (white dots in the middle area) from Jupiter's volcanically active moon, Io, drift outward to create a huge reservoir of electrons and ions. These charged particles, trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field, are continually being accelerated (gold particles around the perimeter) down into the atmosphere above the polar regions, so auroras are almost always active on Jupiter.