Mass Losses Of Co, Cs And Hcn On Jupiter/sl9
Abstract
Since comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) collided with Jupiter in 1994, the IRAM 30-m Telescope (Pico Veleta, Spain) and the 15-m JCMT (Mauna Kea,Hawaii) have regularly observed Jupiter at millimeter/submillimeter wavelengths. Molecular trace species such as HCN, CO, CS and their isotopomers have been detected in the upper atmosphere since the collision. Because of the high spectral resolution attained, our data allow one to infer both temperature and abundances in Jupiter's stratosphere with a maximum spatial resolution of 10 arcsec.
We have used all these data to monitor the latitudinal spreading since the impacts occurred (Marten et al. 1995), to look for changes in their abundances with time (Moreno et al. 2001, 2003) and to determine several isotopic ratios (Matthews et al. 2002). Data taken in 2004 have shown that latitudinal distributions of all these species were almost homogeneous 10 years after impacts, as predicted by Moreno et al. 2003. Moreover, compared to 1998 results, respective mass loss factors as high as 2-7 have been determined for the three molecular main compounds (Moreno et al. 2005). In order to follow-up our monitoring, new disk mapping observations took place in May 2006 using the IRAM-30m Telescope. Here we report the results of the recent measurements of CO, CS and HCN, and also the search for new species: H2CO, H2CS, CH3CN, CH3OH. Such trace compounds could have explained the mass losses observed in 2004, but no clear detections have been obtained after reasonable integration times. Estimates of the new CO, CS and HCN total masses and upper limits for the trace species searched for will be presented. The loss mechanisms will be discussed. IRAM is supported by INSU/CNRS (France), MPG (Germany) and IGN (Spain).- Publication:
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AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #38
- Pub Date:
- September 2006
- Bibcode:
- 2006DPS....38.1113M