Nasa solves 30-year-old Jupiter mystery and finds powerful light beaming from planet

NASA has solved a 30-year-old Jupiter mystery that’s left scientists confused for decades.

The US space agency has detected the most energetic light ever coming from the planet.

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Nasa thinks the new findings are exciting for multiple reasons.

Firstly, because the light, which is technically X-ray radiation, has the highest-energy ever seen on one of our Solar System’s planets other than Earth.

However, the light detection has also helped to solve a Jupiter mystery.

Most planets in our Solar System emit X-rays.

This happens because the Sun emits X-rays and planets reflect this back into space.

A 1992 Nasa mission to Jupiter mysteriously detected no X-rays being reflected from Jupiter.

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However, missions since then have spotted X-rays coming from Jupiter.

This has left scientists baffled for decades.

In a new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, scientists explained how they used the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array space observatory (NuSTAR) to solve the mystery.

For the 1992 mission, Nasa was using the Ulysses space probe.

The researchers think the probe wasn’t able to detect X-rays because its detection range wasn’t large enough to pick up how faint the X-rays really are.

Kaya Mori, lead author of the study, said: “It’s quite challenging for planets to generate X-rays in the range that NuSTAR detects.

“But Jupiter has an enormous magnetic field, and it’s spinning very quickly.

“Those two characteristics mean that the planet’s magnetosphere acts like a giant particle accelerator, and that’s what makes these higher-energy emissions possible.”

The findings have helped to confirm that it was weaknesses in the Ulysses telescope that resulted in reports of no X-ray emissions and not an issue with Jupiter at the time.

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In other news, a new planet has been discovered in our closest planetary system.

Astronomers have observed a red giant star dying in real-time for the first time ever.

And, one of the world’s most sensitive telescopes has been hunting for signs of alien life in the stars.

This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk