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

大气层对于太阳系的可居住性以及围绕其他恒星发现的数千个世界至关重要。气体逃逸到太空，发生在高层大气中，决定了它们随着时间的推移有多稳定，温度越高，逃逸越多。木星和土星的上层大气接收到的阳光量不到地球的4%，因此它们的上层大气应该是寒冷的-70华氏度，但相反，所有地方都被测量为超过200华氏度。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热源，那么缺少的能源是什么呢？这个问题已经存在了50年，说明我们对大气层的认识还很肤浅。我将研究已知影响全球天气和气候的最大过程，其中许多是我最近发现的。在木星，强大的极地极光可能会在行星周围泄漏能量，偶尔会受到太阳风的影响，而像大红斑这样的风暴会进一步加热。在土星，光环雨点般落进行星，改变了它们落下的条件，导致光环被侵蚀。找到缺失的热源，并找出哪些对全球气温最重要，是我所提出的研究的一个主要目标。我感兴趣的是首次揭示天气和气候如何在我们的太阳系和其他恒星周围的巨型行星的最上层大气中发挥作用。

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.