Researchers Discover New Plasma Wave in Jupiter’s Auroral Skies

A research team at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities has identified the first new type of plasma wave in Jupiter's aurora, a finding that broadens our understanding of planetary magnetic environments. The discovery, based on data from NASA's Juno spacecraft, not only enhances knowledge of Jupiter's polar activity but also offers insights into “alien aurora” on other planets. The researchers think such discoveries go some way to explaining how magnetic fields shield atmospheres from being strafed by destructive solar particles, with Earth's auroras providing a natural counterpart for Jupiter's more complex system.

Juno Mission Uncovers Unprecedented Plasma Wave in Jupiter's Invisible Auroras

According to a report published in Physical Review Letters, the crack came after Juno flew close to Jupiter's north pole on a low orbit, the closest a spacecraft has come to the polar region of the gas giant, and scientists for the first time were able to look at conditions on polar plasmas. Infrared auroral images have been taken with telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope, but Juno's polar orbit has allowed the spacecraft to get closer than ever to the planet and pick up previously unobtainable data on the plasma.

Plasma, the super-hot state of matter composed of ions and electrons, pervades the space around magnetised planets. These charged particles move faster into the atmosphere, driving gas lights up as auroras. On Earth, these are visible in green and blue; Jupiter's aurora remains invisible to the naked eye, else it requires ultraviolet and infrared instruments to observe.

The analysis showed Jupiter's polar plasma is unusually sparse, and when combined with the planet's immense magnetic field, it produces plasma waves with extremely low frequencies—unlike anything observed on Earth. Although plasma can behave like a fluid, it is also highly responsive to magnetic fields, which can facilitate these types of complex wave interactions, said Robert Lysak, an expert in plasma dynamics at the University of Minnesota.

Instead, findings from University of Iowa and Southwest Research Institute researchers suggest the charged particles in Jupiter's polar cap are kicked into the region by the planet's own rotating magnetic field.

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CSIRO Uses Quantum AI to Revolutionize Semiconductor Design

Researchers at Australia's CSIRO have achieved a world-first demonstration of quantum machine learning in semiconductor fabrication. The quantum-enhanced model outperformed conventional AI methods and could reshape how microchips are designed. The team focused on modeling a crucial—but hard to predict—property called “Ohmic contact” resistance, which measures how easily current flows where metal meets a semiconductor. They analysed 159 experimental samples from advanced gallium nitride (GaN) transistors (known for high power/high-frequency performance). By combining a quantum processing layer with a final classical regression step, the model extracted subtle patterns that traditional approaches had missed. Tackling a difficult design problem According to the study, the CSIRO researchers first encoded many fabrication variables (like gas mixtures and annealing times) per device and used principal component analysis (PCA) to shrink 37 parameters down to the five most important ones. ...

Hubble Uncovers Multi-Age Stars in Ancient Cluster, Reshaping Galaxy Origins

Astronomers call ancient star clusters like NGC 1786 “time capsules” for their galaxy, preserving some of its oldest stars. A new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope offers an unprecedented close-up of this dense cluster 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Hubble's data show that NGC 1786 contains stars of different ages – a surprising find, since such clusters were once thought to hold a single stellar generation. This multi-age discovery is reshaping our view of how galaxies built their first stars, and suggests more complex early history. Mixed-Age Stars in a Galactic Time Capsule According to the official source, this Hubble image shows the globular cluster NGC 1786, a ball of densely packed stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud about 160,000 light-years from Earth. Astronomers captured this picture as part of a program comparing ancient clusters in nearby dwarf galaxies (like the LMC) with clusters in our own Milky Way. The surprising discovery is th...

A Planet with a Death Wish: How HIP 67522 b Is Forcing Its Star to Explode

Scientists have caught a planet with a death wish, which is an alien world, orbiting very near to its star, and so speedy that it is causing the star to go to its death with bursting explosions. HIP 67522 b is the planet, and it is of the same size as Jupiter with a seven-day orbit around its host star. These orbits are disturbing the magnetic field of the star and causing enormous blasting eruptions to blow back the planet and make it wrinkled. This is the first time that a planet is influencing the host star, as the astronomers reported in a study published on July 2, 2025, in the Journal Nature. A Planet with a Death Wish: HIP 67522 b's Fiery Orbit As per the study by NASA, Ekaterina Ilin, the first author of the study and an astrophysicist at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, said that the planet was observed to trigger the energetic flares. It has been predicted by the scientists that the waves are setting off explosions that are going to happen. Magnetic Chaos: P...

Kartavya Kant Tiwari

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