Other characteristics of the radio emission taught us more about Jupiter. Radio waves like light waves can be polarized or unpolarized. We can picture light waves and radio waves as ripples flying through space. When we talk about light being polarized we mean that most of the light is traveling through space with one preferred way of rippling. These ripples can move up and down like ripples on a pond of water or they can move side to side like a snake slithering across the road.
Light waves can even travel like a twisting corkscrew.
When light is unpolarized all the waves appear to be traveling randomly as if they are traveling all of these ways at the same time. Most of the radio waves from Jupiter are polarized. This discovery told us something about the cause of the radio waves, the conditions at the source of the waves and even about the conditions in space between Jupiter and Earth. Polarized radio waves implied that wherever these waves were coming from there was a magnetic field present. This was one of the first indications that Jupiter had a magnetic field.