Explanation:
How similar is Jupiter's magnetic field to Earth's?
NASA's robotic
Juno spacecraft has found that Jupiter's magnetic field is
surprisingly complex, so that the
Jovian world does not have single magnetic poles like our
Earth.
A snapshot of
Jupiter's magnetic field at one moment in time,
as animated from Juno data, appears in the
featured video.
Red and blue colors depict
cloud-top
regions of strong positive (south) and negative (north) magnetic fields,
respectively.
Surrounding the planet are imagined lines of constant
magnetic field
strength.
The first sequence of the animated video starts off by
showing what appears to be a relatively
normal dipole field,
but soon a
magnetic region
now known as the Great Blue Spot rotates into view,
which is not directly aligned with
Jupiter's rotation poles.
Further, in the second sequence, the
illustrative animation
takes us over one of Jupiter's spin poles where red magnetic hotspots are revealed
to be extended and sometimes even annular.
A better understanding of
Jupiter's
magnetic field
may give clues toward a better understanding of
Earth's
enigmatic planetary
magnetism.
