SPS Seminar - Connecting remote and in-situ measurements from Juno and XMM-Newton to shed light on Jupiter’s X-ray aurora

When:  Thursday 29^th April at 14.00

Where:  Microsoft Teams - Online

Speaker:  Affilia Wibisono - (Mullard Space Science Laboratory)

Hosted by: Alexander Barrett

Abstract:

The shimmering, dancing curtains of light from our planet’s aurorae have mesmerised people for generations. However, it wasn’t until 1979 that the first extra-terrestrial aurora was detected during Voyager 1’s visit to Jupiter. The gas giant planet’s auroral emissions span several wavebands that includes X-rays. Studies show that Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field accelerates ions primarily from the local environment into the planet’s atmosphere above the polar regions. The ions undergo charge stripping before they charge exchange with atmospheric neutrals and produce soft X-rays (photon energy < 2 keV). These emissions also often pulse with periods of tens of minutes. A ring of hard auroral X-rays (photon energy > 2 keV) arising from electron bremsstrahlung usually surrounds the soft X-ray emissions. Jupiter’s X-ray aurora are fixed on the planet’s frame so that as Jupiter spins on its axis, the aurorae rotate in and out of view, rather like how a pulsar’s beam of radiation sweeps across the sky. I will give an overview of how connections between in-situ measurements taken by Juno and the X-ray signatures detected remotely by XMM-Newton, have been made to help revolutionise our understanding of how a planet can produce such bright X-ray emissions.

Affelia Wibisono Bio

Affelia Wibisono received her Master’s degree in Physics from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2012. She has over 10 years’ experience in science communication and has worked with London’s Science Museum and the Royal Observatory Greenwich, to educate, enthuse, and engage school groups and the public on physics and astronomy. Affelia is currently a PhD student of the Planetary Science group at UCL’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory. She uses observations by space telescopes, such as XMM-Newton, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Juno spacecraft in her research to investigate how and why Jupiter produces intense X-ray aurorae and was also part of the science team who first discovered X-rays from Uranus.