But who is really Jupiter? 2nd part
This post is an adaptation in english of my post "Mais qui est vraiment Jupiter ?" that I published last month. I would like to share this article with the English-speaking community.
Jupiter and its magnetic field
Jupiter produces a huge, highly radioactive electromagnetic field! It spans millions of kilometres.
It is created by the internal movements of the planet and above all by its outer core made up of metallic hydrogen. It is dipole and inclined by 10°, it also has a reverse polarity!
The magnetosphere extends for more than seven million kilometres towards the Sun, and almost to Saturn's orbit.
Physicist Michio Kaku tells us that "when you turn on a radio and hear static, many of them come from Jupiter!".
Jupiter undergoes a bombardment of electrically charged solar particles and deforms more or less according to the intensity.
This leads to the appearance of spectacular aurora borealis on the gas giant on the North Pole of Jupiter. This light was detected by the Chandra telescope (launched in 1999) in the X-ray spectrum.
Would she be getting smaller?
It could contain twice all the planets of our solar system and there would still be space!
Is Jupiter decreasing in size?
According to Michelle Thaller (Astronomer):"Gravity continues to hold gases and liquids together, but it heats up inside Jupiter, this heat rises to the surface and dissolves in space and gradually cools the planet. Compared to its creation, it would be one third smaller."
The more it cools, the less it loses its size. This decrease is too slow to be visible.
What about the climate?
On Earth, the Sun feeds the climate. But on Jupiter, the Sun has no effect on its climate, the heat rises through the gases and once the mixture is stirred, spectacular swirling clouds are created...
With its turbulent climate and colossal hurricanes, Jupiter's atmosphere is composed of three concentric cloud layers: clouds of ammonia ice on the surface, clouds of ammonium hydrogen sulphide in orange underneath, and a sublayer of water and ice. There are cataclysmic storms, where lightning can strike with 1000 times more intensity than on Earth.
Its gigantic red spot (larger than the Earth) is a cyclone with winds of over 400 km/h for more than 300 years! Jupiter has no dry land to stop storms, on the contrary it feeds them with its unlimited heat and its fast rotation.
Is Jupiter evil?
In the primitive solar system, 4.5 billion years ago, this gas giant was sowing destruction!
Dan Durda (planetologist) tells us:"In this primitive solar system, the Earth was under incredible bombardment like the others! This period is called "the great late bombardment". These collisions liquefied the rocks at the bottom of the impact craters. Huge streams of dust thrown into the atmosphere and craters everywhere: that's what was happening on Earth at the time."
Four billion years ago, a wave of asteroids and comets came from the external solar system.
Phil Plait (Astronomer) thinks that "all this came from Jupiter and Saturn! They were doing a very complex gravitational broom. When Jupiter makes five rounds of the Sun, Saturn only makes two! And this resonance makes them have very similar trajectories. Then at some point, their gravitational pull added up and they acted even more on everything around her."
Together, they pushed Uranus and Neptune even further away from the Sun and these two planets exchanged places. Neptune then collided with frozen gases and dust from the bottom of the solar system, dispersing icy debris from everywhere. These debris collided with the asteroid belt and crossed paths to the Moon, Earth and other internal planets.
This destruction had a positive effect: the icy comets probably brought water to Earth, and it is perhaps because of Jupiter that life was possible on Earth. Jupiter may even have sown life with all those comets sent to Earth...
This "great bombardment" ended about 3.8 billion years ago....
Is life possible near Jupiter?
It rules over at least 67 moons. She controls and shapes them as she sees fit! So it could make one of them favourable to life...
On March 01,2007, NASA's New Horizon probe flew over "Io", one of Jupiter's moons, about the same size as our Moon.
According to Phil Plait (Astronomer):"Io is one of the most interesting, it is covered with erupting volcano (at least 400), its orbit is eccentric and so it is never at the same distance from Jupiter. Sulphur dioxide and the chemical elements that escape are transported by Jupiter's magnetic field to Europe, which is an icy moon. When flying over Europe, we know that there are huge cracks on its surface and that an ocean could be underneath it. This small icy moon could harbour an extraterrestrial life... Jupiter and its strong magnetic field stretches and compresses Europe and these rubs melt it from the inside. We have had evidence of this water present in Europe with two giant geysers discovered: water exiting the south pole of this moon was spotted on photos taken by the Hubble telescope. This water was spat out 200 kilometers into the atmosphere of Europe."
Water and other chemical elements are needed for life to occur. Jupiter brings these chemical elements from Io to Europe.
According to Chris McKay (astrobiologist):"The important thing is that there are interesting elements made on the surface so that organisms in the ocean can eventually appreciate them."
Life could therefore exist in Europe... And it could resemble that which exists on Earth in our oceans...
Jupiter is a protector of the internal solar system! It pushes away the comets that are towards it and thus protects the Earth! She finally really has the power of life or death over us. She can be our best friend as our worst enemy!
As in Roman mythology, where Jupiter is the gods of the gods, it reigns over the other planets of our solar system without partition.
But in the end, Jupiter remains indispensable for our survival on Earth...
Its future is on hold because of the Sun, which in four or five billion years will become a red giant. It will probably absorb the closest planets, until it reaches the orbit of Mars. Jupiter could lose part of its atmosphere but survive and distant and icy planets could become very hospitable...
So when's life on the Jovian moons?
But once the Sun becomes a white dwarf and produces no more light, we won't even see it since Jupiter and it will drift into space...
The darkness will have no impact on Jupiter who will continue to revolve around this white dwarf, but what about life? Hope is possible that life will survive on Europe without the Sun.
And Jupiter will reign over our solar system until the end of it...
http://planetologie.destination-orbite.net/champ_magnetique_jupiter.php
https://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/espace/planetes/une-image-a-couper-le-souffle-des-champs-magnetiques-de-jupiter_34786
A documentary MMXIV DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS, LLC
http://sweetrandomscience.blogspot.fr/2014/08/la-meteo-du-systeme-solaire-episode-2.html
http://www.slate.fr/story/98243/vie-lune-jupiter-europe
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