Volume 3, Issue 1 · September 2026
Fall 2026
1 article, in the order the club meant them to be read.
- 1
ExplainerPlanetary Astronomy
Neptune's Missing Aurora Was Hiding in the Tropics
Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus have all been watched for decades in the infrared light of a small molecular ion called H 3 + , which glows wherever a giant planet's magnetic field funnels charged particles into its upper atmosphere. Neptune refused to show it. In March 2025 a team led by Henrik Melin reported that JWST had finally caught the ion, and caught with it the first clear infrared aurora at Neptune, sitting betw