The Gravitational Signature of Jupiter's Internal Dynamics

Details The Gravitational Signature of Jupiter's Internal Dynamics The Gravitational Signature of Jupiter's Internal Dynamics

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.2408k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #24.08

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The upcoming Juno mission to Jupiter will measure the high degree gravity moments, which can be used to infer the internal wind structure of the planet. We use dynamical models ranging from a simple thermal-wind balance model to a full 3D anelastic non-hydrostatic general circulation model (GCM), to calculate the density anomalies and gravity moments resulting from the internal winds. We give predictions to the gravity moments resulting from different internal wind structure scenarios.
Calculations using potential theory (Hubbard, 1999) show that if the differential rotation on Jupiter penetrates the depth of the planet then the resulting gravity moments will be stronger than the solid body components beyond the tenth degree. To first order both the GCM and the thermal-wind analysis agree with these calculations. We perform more detailed calculations by using the observed cloud-top winds and systematically varying the vertical and latitudinal wind structures to give relations between the moments and the depth and the latitudinal extent of the circulation. Particularly we find that if Jupiter has substantial winds beyond a depth of 500 km the moment J12 should be larger than that expected just from the solid body rotation of the planet. In addition when calculating directly the gravity anomaly at distances relevant for the Juno orbit, we find that the gravity anomaly due to the dynamics is on the order of a few mgal which is within the detection limit of Juno. These calculations could be used in the future for interpreting the Juno data.

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