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宜居性以及围绕其他恒星运行的数千个世界来说都很重要。在高层大气中，气体逃逸到太空，这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%，所以它们的上层大气应该是寒冷的-70摄氏度，但实际上，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上层大气的太阳，并不是这些星球最上层的主要热源，那么缺失的能量来源是什么呢？这个问题已经存在了50年，说明我们对大气的了解还很浅。我将调查已知的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。在木星上，强大的极地极光可能会在行星周围泄漏能量，偶尔会受到影响行星的太阳风的推动，而像大红斑这样的风暴则会进一步加热。在土星上，土星环像雨一样落在行星上，改变了它们下落的环境，导致土星环被侵蚀。寻找缺失的热源，并找出哪些对全球气温最重要，是我提出的研究的主要目标。我感兴趣的是发现天气和气候是如何在太阳系和其他恒星周围的巨大行星的最上层大气中工作的。

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.