Chandra observations of Jupiter's X-ray Aurora during Juno upstream and apojove intervals
Abstract
The Chandra space telescope has recently conducted a number of campaigns to observe Jupiter's X-ray aurora. The first set of campaigns took place in summer 2016 while the Juno spacecraft was upstream of the planet sampling the solar wind. The second set of campaigns took place in February, June and August 2017 at times when the Juno spacecraft was at apojove. These campaigns were planned following the Juno orbit correction to capitalise on the opportunity to image the X-ray emission while Juno was orbiting close to the expected position of the magnetopause. Previous work has suggested that the auroral X-ray emissions map close to the magnetopause boundary [e.g. Vogt et al., 2015; Kimura et al., 2016; Dunn et al., 2016] and thus in situ spacecraft coverage in this region combined with remote observation of the X-rays afford the chance to constrain the drivers of these energetic emissions and determine if they originate on open or closed field lines. We aim to examine possible drivers of X-ray emission including reconnection and the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability and to explore the role of the solar wind in controlling the emissions. We report on these upstream and apojove campaigns including intensities and periodicities of auroral X-ray emissions. This new era of jovian X-ray astronomy means we have more data than ever before, long observing windows (up to 72 ks for this Chandra set), and successive observations relatively closely spaced in time. These features combine to allow us to pursue novel methods for examining periodicities in the X-ray emission. Our work will explore significance testing of emerging periodicities, and the search for coherence in X-ray pulsing over weeks and months, seeking to understand the robustness and regularity of previously reported hot spot X-ray emissions. The periods that emerge from our analysis will be compared against those which emerge from radio and UV wavelengths.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AGUFM.P31C2825D
- Keywords:
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- 2756 Planetary magnetospheres;
- MAGNETOSPHERIC PHYSICS;
- 5704 Atmospheres;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: FLUID PLANETS;
- 5724 Interiors;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: FLUID PLANETS;
- 6220 Jupiter;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: SOLAR SYSTEM OBJECTS