Fundamental Processes at Giant Planets in the Solar System and Beyond: Global heating and Saturn's Raining Rings

太阳系及其他地区巨行星的基本过程：全球变暖和土星雨环

• 批准号: ST/X003426/1
• 负责人: James O'Donoghue
• 金额: $ 84.01万
• 依托单位: University of Reading
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FX003426%2F1
• 关键词: Fundamental; Processes; Giant; Planets; Solar; Fundamental; Processes; Giant; Planets; Solar

Atmospheres are important for habitability in the solar system and for the thousands of worlds discovered orbiting other stars. The escape of gas to space, which occurs in the upper atmosphere, determines how stable they are over time, with higher temperatures driving more escape. The upper atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn receive under 4% the amount of sunlight as Earth, so their upper atmospheres should be a frigid -70 degrees celsius, but instead, everywhere is measured to be over 200 degrees celsius. This means that the Sun, which is responsible for heating the Earth's upper atmosphere, is not the main source of heating in the uppermost parts of these worlds, so what is the missing energy source? This problem has existed for 50 years, illustrating that our knowledge of atmospheres is shallow. I will investigate the biggest processes known to affect global weather and climate, many of which I discovered recently. At Jupiter, powerful polar auroras may be leaking energy around the planet, occasionally boosted by the solar wind impacting the planet, while storms like the Great Red Spot add further heating. At Saturn, the rings rain into the planet, changing conditions where they fall and causing the rings to erode. Finding the missing sources of heating and figuring out which are most important for global temperatures is a major goal of my proposed research. I am interested in uncovering how weather and climate work in the uppermost atmospheres of giant planets for the first time, in our solar system and around other stars.

气氛对于太阳系中的可居住性和成千上万的世界发现了绕其他恒星绕的世界很重要。在高层大气中发生的气体逃流到太空，决定了它们随着时间的流逝的稳定程度，温度更高，越来越高。木星和土星的上层大气占地的4％以下，因此它们的上层大气应该是寒冷的-70摄氏度，但相反，到处都可以测量到超过200摄氏度。这意味着负责加热地球上层大气的太阳不是这些世界上最高部分的主要加热来源，那么缺少的能源来源是什么？这个问题已经存在了50年，表明我们对气氛的了解很浅。我将研究已知影响全球天气和气候的最大过程，最近我发现了其中的许多过程。在木星，强大的极地极光可能正在泄漏地球周围的能量，偶尔会因影响地球的太阳风而增强，而像大红色斑点之类的暴风雨增加了进一步的加热。在土星，戒指降雨到地球上，改变了它们掉落并导致戒指侵蚀的条件。找到缺失的加热来源和确定哪些对于全球温度最重要的是我拟议的研究的主要目标。我有兴趣发现第一次，太阳系和其他恒星的天气和气候工作如何在巨型行星的最高气氛中如何。