Powerful choral waves near Ganymede

Powerful choral waves near Ganymede

This is a natural color image of Ganymede received by the Galileo spacecraft during its first meeting with the satellite of Jupiter. The north is on top, and the sun illuminates the surface on the right. Dark areas are older crater areas, and light areas are young and tectonically deformed. Brownish gray is caused by mixtures of stony materials and ice. Bright spots are recent impact craters and their ejections. The details in question reach a latitude of 13.4 km. Pictures taken June 26, 1996

Listening to the EM waves around the Earth, turned into a sound, almost resembles the chirping of birds against the background of a crackling fire. These waves are called choral waves, and they activate the Northern Lights, as well as high-energy "deadly" electrons that can damage a spacecraft. A recent study describes unusual waves around other planets in the solar system.

The analysis showed that the strength of choral waves is 1 million times more intense near the satellite of Jupiter Ganymede and 100 times near Europe than the average around the planets. This is an amazing find, suggesting that satellites with a magnetic field are capable of creating powerful waves. Choral waves are a special type of radio waves occurring at extremely low frequencies. Unlike the Earth, Ganymede and Europe rotate in the large-scale magnetic field of Jupiter. The authors believe that this is one of the key factors feeding the waves. The magnetic field of Jupiter is one of the largest in our system and is approximately 20,000 times stronger than the earth.

Observations show that even a small part of these waves near Ganymede is capable of accelerating particles to extremely high energies, which will lead to fast electrons in Jupiter’s magnetic field. Around the Earth, choral waves play an important role in the formation of high-energy "deadly" electrons that can harm spacecraft. Now scientists are trying to understand whether this situation is repeated on Jupiter.

Observation of Jupiter's waves allows one to understand the fundamental processes related to laboratory plasma and the search for new sources of energy, as well as the mechanisms of acceleration and loss around the planets in the solar system. Such processes can be repeated in exoplanets, which will make it possible to understand whether there are magnetic fields in foreign worlds near distant stars.

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