A spacecraft en route to spy on Jupiter and its moons has snapped a rare and excitingly high-definition picture of the Earth's radiation belt.
The European Space Agency's Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) spacecraft tested its Jovian Energetic Neutrals and Ions (JENI) instrument as it did a flyby of Earth, using the planet's gravity to slingshot itself toward Jupiter.
Between August 19 and August 20, the craft snapped the sharpest-ever images of the Earth's radiation belts, clumps of charged particles trapped in the Earth's magnetic field.
"As soon as we saw the crisp, new images, high fives went around the room," Matina Gkioulidou, deputy lead of JENI at APL, said in a statement. "It was clear we had captured the vast ring of hot plasma encircling Earth in unprecedented detail, an achievement that has sparked excitement for what is to come at Jupiter."
Juice, launched on April 14, 2023, will observe Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere and magnetosphere and interactions with its moons, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. The mission also hopes to determine whether these moons could support life by analyzing their surface composition, geology, and the potential presence of liquid water beneath their icy crusts.
JENI—the newest form of this instrument—senses charged particles by detecting neutral atoms emitted by the ions as they interact with the hydrogen gas in the atmosphere. When it reaches Jupiter in July 2031, JENI will be used to study the magnetosphere of the gas giant.
The image snapped by Juice shows a halo of plasma in the radiation belt stretching out several times the Earth's radius around the planet. The Earth's radiation belts, also known as the Van Allen radiation belts, are two layers of charged particles held in place by the Earth's magnetic field.
These belts contain electrons and protons trapped by the planet's magnetic field and form a donut-shaped region around the Earth. The inner radiation belt sits between 600 and 7,500 miles above the Earth and contains mostly protons with very high energy levels, while the outer belt is located at an altitude of about 8,000 to 37,000 miles above the Earth's surface and contains high-energy electrons.
"I couldn't have hoped for a better flyby," Pontus Brandt, principal investigator of JoEE and JENI at APL, said in the statement. "The richness of the data from our deep-dive through the magnetosphere is astounding. JENI's image of the entire system we just flew through was the cherry on top. It's a powerful combination we will exploit in the Jovian system."
On its way past the moon, Juice's Jovian Energetic Electrons (JoEE) instrument gathered data about how our moon interacts with the space environment as a practice run for its duties when it reaches Jupiter's moons.
Juice is planned to use Venus for another gravity assist in August 2025. After that, it will swing back by Earth in September 2026 and January 2029 and arrive in the Jovian system in 2031.
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