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Is
the aurora only found on Earth? No, not by any stretch of the imagination. Recently,
scientists discovered that Jupiter has its own aurora. Using the Hubble Telescope,
they were able to find out more about this phenomenon. They found that the aurora
on Jupiter is not caused so much from particles from the sun, but from charged
particles given off by its volcanic moon, Io. Io gives off charged particles
from the volcanic activity via an invisible current of charged particles called
a "flux tube.This is shown in the top part of the picture. The particles
then follow Jupiter's magnetic field toward the poles.The charged particles
then hit the atmosphere and cause the light of the aurora. The bottom pictures
show Jupiter's auroral footprint left when the particles reach Jupiter's upper
atmosphere. These pictures were taken using ultraviolet light. They are taken
at different times to see how the aurora changes as Jupiter rotates. For more
information, check out the following website:
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/32.html.
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