The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured new details of the auroras on our Solar System’s largest planet. The dancing lights observed on Jupiter are hundreds of times brighter than those seen on Earth. With Webb’s advanced sensitivity, astronomers have studied the phenomena to better understand Jupiter’s magnetosphere.

Inside a spherical cagelike structure, a small platform slowly spins as if floating. A single, bright lamp illuminates the scene, simulating the Sun. This setup constitutes the European Space Agency’s brand new facility for the testing of CubeSats – small satellites, usually no larger than a shoebox and weighing only a few kilograms.

This space-simulating facility, built for ESA by University of Bologna and Nautilus - Navigation in Space, is part of the Attitude and Control System (AOCS) & Pointing Systems laboratory at ESTEC, the Agency’s technical centre.

Just like any piece of machinery destined for space, CubeSats undergo

As the night closed in on Spain and Portugal on 28 April, polar satellites followed the blackout that lasted well into the early hours of the morning in several regions.