Jupiter’s magnetic field is surprisingly weird
NASA’s Juno spacecraft reveals unusual magnetism that suggests a convoluted interior
If Earth’s magnetic field resembles that of a bar magnet, Jupiter’s field looks like someone took a bar magnet, bent it in half and splayed it at both ends.
The field emerges in a broad swath across Jupiter’s northern hemisphere and re-enters the planet both around the south pole and in a concentrated spot just south of the equator, researchers report in the Sept. 6 Nature.
“We were baffled” at the finding, says study coauthor Kimberly Moore, a graduate student at Harvard University.