Episode 518 - Aurora on Jupiter and on Earth

Aurora are stellar examples of high energy physics. You need to be at the right spot to find Aurora on earth, but its not quite the same on Jupiter. What governs where and how an aurora will form? Earth and Jupiter are very different in size and speed, but why are our Auroras so different? How does Jupiter's magnetosphere bring all it's moons into line? What happens when an small independent moon brushes up against a super sized neighbour? Ganymede has it's own indepedent magnetic field. So what would happen if it got gobbled up by Jupiter?

1. Binzheng Zhang, Peter A. Delamere, Zhonghua Yao, Bertrand Bonfond, D. Lin, Kareem A. Sorathia, Oliver J. Brambles, William Lotko, Jeff S. Garretson, Viacheslav G. Merkin, Denis Grodent, William R. Dunn, John G. Lyon. How Jupiter’s unusual magnetospheric topology structures its aurora. Science Advances, 2021; 7 (15): eabd1204 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd1204
2. R. W. Ebert, S. A. Fuselier, F. Allegrini, F. Bagenal, S. J. Bolton, G. Clark, J. E. P. Connerney, G. A. DiBraccio, W. S. Kurth, S. Levin, D. J. McComas, J. Montgomery, N. Romanelli, A. H. Sulaiman, J. R. Szalay, P. Valek, R. J. Wilson. Evidence for Magnetic Reconnection at Ganymede's Upstream Magnetopause During the PJ34 Juno Flyby. Geophysical Research Letters, 2022; 49 (23) DOI: 10.1029/2022GL099775