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- Written by: NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
The gas-giant orbiter is illuminating the provenance of Jovian polar light shows.
New results from the Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument on NASA’s Juno mission reveal for the first time the birth of auroral dawn storms – the early morning brightening unique to Jupiter’s spectacular aurorae.
These immense, transient displays of light occur at both Jovian poles and had previously been observed only by ground-based and Earth-orbiting observatories, notably NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Results of this study were published March 16 in the journal AGU Advances.
First discovered by Hubble’s Faint Object Camera in 1994, dawn storms consist of short-lived but intense brightening and broadening of Jupiter’s main auroral oval – an oblong curtain of light that surrounds both poles – near where the atmosphere emerges from darkness in the early morning region.
Before Juno, observations of Jovian ultraviolet aurora had offered only side views, hiding everything happening on the nightside of the planet.
“Observing Jupiter’s aurora from Earth does not allow you to see beyond the limb, into the nightside of Jupiter’s poles. Explorations by other spacecraft – Voyager, Galileo, Cassini – happened from relatively large distances and did not fly over the poles, so they could not see the complete picture,” said Bertrand Bonfond, a researcher from the University of Liège in Belgium and lead author of the study. “That’s why the Juno data is a real game changer, allowing us a better understanding what is happening on the nightside, where the dawn storms are born.”
Researchers found dawn storms are born on the nightside of the gas giant. As the planet rotates, the soon-to-be dawn storm rotates with it into the dayside, where these complex and intensely bright auroral features grow even more luminous, emitting anywhere from hundreds to thousands of gigawatts of ultraviolet light into space. The jump in brightness implies that dawn storms are dumping at least 10 times more energy into Jupiter's upper atmosphere than typical aurora.
“When we looked at the whole dawn storm sequence, we couldn’t help but notice that they are very similar to a type of terrestrial auroras called substorms,” said Zhonghua Yao, co-author of the study at the University of Liège.”
Substorms result from brief disturbances in the Earth’s magnetosphere – the region of space controlled by the planet’s magnetic field – that release energy high into the planet’s ionosphere. The similarity between terrestrial and Jovian substorms is surprising because the magnetospheres of Jupiter and Earth are radically different.
On Earth, the magnetosphere is essentially controlled by the interaction of the solar wind – the stream of charged particles flowing from the Sun – with Earth’s magnetic field.
Jupiter’s magnetosphere is mostly populated by particles escaping from the volcanic moon Io, which then get ionized and trapped around the gas giant via its magnetic field.
These new findings will allow scientists to further study the differences and similarities driving the formation of aurora, providing a better understanding how these most beautiful of planetary phenomena occur on worlds both within our solar system and beyond.
“The power that Jupiter possesses is amazing. The energy in these dawn aurorae is yet another example of how powerful this giant planet really is,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “The dawn storm revelations are another surprise from the Juno mission, which is constantly rewriting the book on how giant planet’s work. With NASA’s recent mission extension, we’re looking forward to many more new insights and discoveries.”
More information about Juno is available at https://www.nasa.gov/juno and https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu.
Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at https://www.facebook.com/NASASolarSystem and https://www.twitter.com/NASASolarSystem.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said it has arrested a Northshore man who stabbed an employee at a local gas station on Wednesday.
Moses Filburn James Reeves, 34, of Nice was arrested by the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday in Mendocino County for public intoxication, said Lt. Corey Paulich of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
At 8 p.m. Thursday, Reeves was released from the Mendocino County Jail and placed under arrest by a Lake County Sheriff’s deputy for the assault that occurred on Wednesday afternoon at the Pomo Pumps Gas Station in Upper Lake, Paulich said.
Paulich said Reeves was transported to the Lake County Jail where he was booked into custody for the charges of assault with a deadly weapon and battery, with bail set at $25,000.
As of Friday evening, jail records indicated Reeves was no longer in custody.
Reeves was arrested for stabbing a male employee at Pomo Pump Gas Station during a Wednesday afternoon confrontation. The man suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was flown to an out-of-county trauma center, as Lake County News has reported.
Later that same day, authorities arrested Jerrica Marie Reeves, 31, also of Nice, who investigators had identified as the other suspect in the assault.
Anyone with information about the assault is asked to contact Det. Dean Preader at 707-262-4231 or
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The city of Clearlake this week temporarily closed its Andy Johnson Memorial Skate Park in order to repair damage caused by vandalism, which the city manager said has become an ongoing problem.
City Manager Alan Flora said the Lakeshore Lions Club generously donated a brand-new gazebo to the park last month.
Since then, vandals have repeatedly damaged the gazebo, which Flora said has necessitated continual repairs.
Flora said the community and the city have invested heavily in Austin Park and the Public Works crew has been working hard to make Austin Park and the Andy Johnson Memorial Skate Park a destination our community can be proud of, “so it is extremely disappointing when things like this happen.”
He said repairing the damage from vandalism takes parks funds and the parks crew’s time away from other improvements they are working on.
“We need the community to respect our public facilities so all can enjoy them. We know it’s likely that one or two bad actors are spoiling the use of the skate park for the majority, and that’s disappointing, so please share any available information on those responsible,” he said.
Flora updated the Clearlake City Council about the situation at the Thursday night council meeting.
He said the Lions had to make repairs within the first week of the gazebo being in place.
Due to the repeated vandalism, Flora said the skate park has been closed for two weeks while repairs to the gazebo take place.
He called the situation “very frustrating.”
The park is public property, paid for by everyone. “It’s something that we should respect and pick up after ourselves and treat nicely,” he said.
Also frustrating for the city is that, while generally the community has been understanding of the situation, he said a number of adults associated with the park have shown “some extremely disturbing behavior.”
He said he’s received “a fair amount of correspondence” via fax and other methods – which he didn’t want to show at the meeting – threatening a number of things unless the skate park is opened again.
“This is extremely disappointing,” Flora said. “The city will not be bullied into opening the skate park so that it can be vandalized again.”
Flora said the park will remain closed for two weeks. “After that, we will open it again to see how it’s treated.”
If there is more vandalism, the city will close the skate park again, probably for a longer period of time, Flora said.
“We are working on some camera solutions for that area as well as other areas of the park,” said Flora, referring to the greater Austin Park facility.
Because of being a government agency, he said the city has requirements about using cameras and retaining the footage. He said Police Chief Andrew White is working on the camera matter.
Following the meeting, Flora shared with Lake County News some of the messages he’s received, which included disturbing images of pornography and racist language, a Donald Trump cartoon showing the former president making hand gestures associated with white supremacy and a picture of Adolf Hitler giving the Nazi salute.
Anyone who sees vandalism occurring in the city parks is asked to contact the Clearlake Police Department at 707-994-8251.
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In January, the board had given staff approval to finalize plans to swap a 15.5-acre county-owned property at 15837 18th Ave. in Clearlake for the Lakeport National Guard Armory at 1431 Hoyt Ave., which is being vacated after the guard unit consolidated with another one, as Lake County News has reported.
The state would have the Clearlake property developed with 100 new affordable housing units while the county plans to use the former armory as the new headquarters for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, which currently is headquartered in an aging facility at 1220 Martin St. in Lakeport.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Deputy County Administrative Officer Susan Parker reviewed the board’s previous actions and updated the supervisors on the actions taken by the planning commissions for the county and the city of Clearlake to find the plan to be in conformance with the county and city general plans, respectively.
Parker said the board first needed to declare the Clearlake property surplus and its intent to exchange the property with the state by adopting two proposed resolutions.
The second action was to authorize County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson to negotiate, execute and implement the property exchange agreement with the state of California, Parker said.
“This looks very straightforward,” said Board Chair Bruno Sabatier.
Sabatier asked if it was the final step or if there would be other potential steps in the near future for the swap.
Parker said the county was waiting for a draft exchange agreement from the state to review and negotiate.
Sabatier followed up by asking if Parker had a timeline for when those things would happen. Parker said they didn’t know.
Sheriff Brian Martin thanked everyone for their efforts.
“It’s a long project. We’re not done with it yet,” he said, noting that there are a lot of moving parts.
Clearlake City Manager Alan Flora echoed Martin’s sentiments, adding that he appreciated the collaboration with the county on the project. Sabatier, in turn, thanked Flora for his efforts and those of the city planning commission.
The board unanimously approved the necessary resolutions.
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