Emission of cosmic rays from Jupiter. Magnetospheres as Sources of Cosmic Rays

TL;DR

Recent satellite measurements suggest that Jupiter's magnetosphere contributes to cosmic rays detected on Earth, indicating astrophysical magnetospheres as potential cosmic ray sources.

Contribution

This paper provides evidence supporting the hypothesis that magnetospheres of planets like Jupiter can be sources of cosmic rays, based on satellite data analysis.

Findings

Proton fluxes are higher when Earth's orbit intersects magnetic field lines connecting to Jupiter.

Data shows a statistically significant correlation (>10 sigma) between Earth's position and Jupiter-originating cosmic rays.

Satellite measurements support the magnetosphere-origin hypothesis for some cosmic rays.

Abstract

Measurements made recently with the PAMELA satellite have shown with good evidence that a fraction of the cosmic rays detected on Earth comes from Jupiter. This result draws attention to the idea that magnetospheres of astrophysical objects could contribute to the sources of cosmic rays. We discuss this conjecture on the basis of Earth installed instrumentation and of the measurements made with PAMELA. The experiments strongly favor the validity of the conjecture. In particular the PAMELA data show that the proton fluxes are larger when the Earth orbit intersects the lines of the interplanetary magnetic field connecting Jupiter with Earth. This effect shows up with more than ten standard deviations, difficult to explain without the idea that part of the cosmic ray protons comes directly from the Jupiter magnetosphere.