heat upper atmosphere of Jupiter tagged posts

Close-up of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. Credit: NASA/JPL

Scientists answer elusive question in new study. Researchers from Boston University’s (BU) Center for Space Physics report today in Nature that Jupiter’s Great Red Spot may provide the mysterious source of energy required to heat the planet’s upper atmosphere to the unusually high values observed.

Sunlight reaching Earth efficiently heats the terrestrial atmosphere at altitudes well above the surface – even at 250 miles high, for example, where the International Space Station orbits. Jupiter is >5X more distant from the Sun, and yet its upper atmosphere has temperatures, on average, comparable to those found at Earth...