The electrical currents in the liquid metal interior of Jupiter may be the source of the planet’s enormous magnetic field, the largest in the solar system, and of its associated belt of trapped electrons and protons. These charged particles are ejected from the Sun in the solar wind and captured and accelerated by Jupiter’s magnetic field. Vast numbers of them are trapped far above the clouds and are condemned to bounce from pole to pole until by chance they encounter some high-altitude atmospheric molecule and are removed from the radiation belt. Io moves in an orbit so close to Jupiter that
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