Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Dec 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufmsm41b1665h&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #SM41B-1665
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
2704 Auroral Phenomena (2407), 5440 Magnetic Fields And Magnetism, 5706 Aurorae, 5737 Magnetospheres (2756), 6293 Uranus
Scientific paper
Resolution of the details of a planetary magnetic field from magnetometer measurements made during a single flyby can be limited by the incomplete geometrical sampling of the trajectory. This problem was especially severe for the only spacecraft visit to Uranus, that of Voyager 2 in 1986. Fortunately, auroral footprints serve as additional constraints that may be used to determine the higher multipole moments of the planetary field. This approach has been used by Connerney (JGR 103:11,929, 1998) to improve the magnetic field model of Jupiter. In the present work, this approach is applied to improving the resolution of the magnetic field of Uranus. The earlier determination of Uranus' auroral emission distribution (Herbert JGR 99:4143, 1994) from scans by the Voyager 2 Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) has been improved by incorporating more observations and using more powerful analysis techniques. However, the resulting new estimate of the locus of the auroral oval does not match the expectations derived from the Voyager magnetometer (Connerney et al., JGR 92:15,329, 1987, Q3 model). Accordingly, a search has been initiated for planetary magnetic field model coefficients that agree both with the new auroral locus and also with the magnetic field observations. This search is more ambiguous than that at Jupiter, because the source of the aurora is not clearly defined, but a reasonable starting assumption is that it lies at constant L shell (maximum field-line distance from Uranus). Based on this assumption, preliminary results confirm the Q3 model quadrupole moment's large magnitude but disagree slightly with its orientation. Further analysis will be presented at the meeting. Support from the NASA Outer Planets Program made this work possible, and is gratefully acknowledged. Part of this work was done while a guest investigator at l'Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris (IAP/CNRS), whose hospitality is appreciated.
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