Protecting Life on an Exomoon

An artist's illustration of a hot Jupiter and two of its moons.
June 30, 2016
CreditJPL- Caltech
Language
  • english

The Juno mission has met Jupiter, the giant Wun Wun of our solar system. On July 4th, Juno entered Jupiter’s orbit, and will continue to loop around the planet for the next 20 months. The Juno probe will investigate Jupiter’s unique magnetic field, which is much stronger than Earth’s. On Earth, our magnetic field protects life from deadly solar radiation. If an exoplanet similar to Jupiter exists outside our solar system, its powerful magnetic field could similarly protect life on its moons from harmful bombardments of charged particles.