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First look at Jupiter's synchrotron emission from Juno's perspective

Authors :
Steven Levin
Fabiano Oyafuso
Scott Bolton
Andrew P. Ingersoll
M. A. Janssen
Virgil Adumitroaie
R. Williamson
John E. P. Connerney
Daniel Santos-Costa
Samuel Gulkis
Shannon Brown
Source :
Geophysical Research Letters. 44:8676-8684
Publication Year :
2017
Publisher :
American Geophysical Union (AGU), 2017.

Abstract

Since August 2016, measurements of Jupiter's microwave emissions at six wavelengths ranging from 1.3 cm to 50 cm have been made with the Juno Microwave Radiometer (MWR). In this paper, we introduce the first systematic set of in-situ observations of synchrotron radiation in a polar plane while describing the modeling approach we use to analyze this data (collected August 27th, 2016). Time series of brightness profiles at all six frequencies present similarities that are explained by the presence of known regions of intense synchrotron radiation. Our model predictions, though limited for now to the total intensity of the radiation, reproduce (qualitatively) the observation of temporal variations and allow to disentangle the synchrotron emission from the atmospheric emission. The discrepancies seen between the data and simulations confirm that physical conditions close to Jupiter affecting synchrotron emission (electron energy spectra, pitch-angle distributions, and the magnetic environment) are different than we anticipated.

Details

ISSN :
19448007 and 00948276
Volume :
44
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Geophysical Research Letters
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........48e271c504ceca719a3604492ed0d599
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1002/2017gl072836