Something strange is happening beneath the rotating surface of the Solar System’s largest gas giant. A team of scientists from Harvard University announced that they have observed changes in Jupiter’s magnetic field that suggest mysterious waves are moving deep within its core.

A planet’s magnetic field acts as a window into the dynamics occurring deep beneath its surface. Any changes in these fields reveal the hidden interaction between magnetism, fluid flow, and other forces. The same interactions create the Earth’s magnetic field.

But scientists noticed that the jet (high-speed flow) deep in Jupiter’s atmosphere fluctuates every four years. They detected these fluctuations using observations from NASA’s Juno spacecraft and published the results. Nature. The fluctuations were concentrated in a particularly intense magnetic field on Jupiter, known as the Great Blue Spot.

“These changes can largely be explained by an eastward drift of the point, but the rate of drift is changing as reported in this paper,” he said. BBC Science Focus Managing Writer Jeremy Bloxham is a professor of geophysics at Harvard University.

Bloxham and his team say these fluctuations indicate the presence of waves deep within Jupiter’s metallic core: an important step towards determining what’s hidden inside.

He likens it to a wave that changes speed as it moves through the ocean. But unlike waves in the ocean, these waves can move along lines or even cylindrically. They now ask whether these are torsion waves (waves around the planet’s rotation axis – the imaginary line around which Jupiter rotates) or Alfvén waves (waves traveling along magnetic field lines). Figuring this out will help scientists answer the forces driving Jupiter’s magnetic field.

What’s holding them back is the mystery that remains around the jet at the planet’s equator. They say they will need more precise details to fully understand what’s going on in the gas giant’s magnetic fields.