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

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.

大气对于太阳系的宜居性以及发现的绕其他恒星运行的数千个世界非常重要。气体逃逸到太空的过程发生在高层大气中，这决定了它们随着时间的推移的稳定性，较高的温度会导致更多的逃逸。木星和土星的高层大气接收到的阳光量不到地球的 4%，因此它们的高层大气应该是寒冷的 -70 摄氏度，但事实上，所有地方的温度都超过了 200 摄氏度。这意味着负责加热地球高层大气的太阳并不是这些世界最上层的主要加热来源，那么缺失的能源是什么呢？这个问题已经存在了50年，说明我们对大气的了解还很肤浅。我将研究已知影响全球天气和气候的最大过程，其中许多过程是我最近发现的。在木星，强大的极光可能会在行星周围泄漏能量，偶尔会受到撞击行星的太阳风的推动，而像大红斑这样的风暴则进一步加剧热量的增加。在土星，光环如雨点般落入土星，改变了它们坠落的条件并导致光环被侵蚀。寻找缺失的热源并找出对全球气温最重要的热源是我提出的研究的一个主要目标。我有兴趣首次揭示太阳系和其他恒星周围巨行星最高层大气中的天气和气候如何运作。