Jupiter's Moons create incredible light display on gas giant's surface

The largest of Jupiter’s moons Ganymede has one unique characteristic. It is the only moon to have a strong magnetic field. This field generates incredible aurora’s that have been discovered using images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The orbits of both Ganymede and another of Jupiter’s moons, Io, generate bright spots as they orbit the planet and interact with the plasma on it’s plasma surface.

While the imprint Ganymede makes on Jupiter is larger then the moon itself, the imprint does correspond to magnetic sphere around Ganymede. In a similar matter, Io’s imprint corresponds to the measurement of charged particles ejected from Io’s many active volcanoes.

In a presentation to the European Planetary Science Congress, astrophysicist Denis Grodent of Belgium stated: “By analyzing the exact locations of these features and how their shape and brightness changes as Io and Ganymede move in their orbit around Jupiter, we have created the most detailed picture to date of how Jupiter and these moons are electromagnetically interconnected.”

Grodent and his team believe that they are now further ahead in understanding the variations between Jupiter’s plasma and the Ganymede’s magnetic field, but more research is still required.