Radio waves accelerate electrons within Jupiter’s magnetic field
in the same way as they do on Earth, according to new research
published in Nature Physics this week. The discovery overturns a
theory that has held sway for more than a generation and has
important implications for protecting Earth-orbiting satellites.
Using data collected at Jupiter by the Galileo spacecraft, Dr
Richard Horne of British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and colleagues
from the University of California, Los Angeles, and the
University of Iowa found that a special type of very low
frequency radio wave is strong enough to accelerate electrons up
to very high energies inside Jupiter’s magnetic field. According
to lead author, Dr Richard Horne, “We’ve shown before that very
low frequency radio waves can accelerate electrons in the
Earth’s magnetic field, but we have now shown that exactly the
same theory works on Jupiter, where the magnetic field is 20,000
times stronger than the Earth’s and the composition of the
atmosphere is very different