Ionospheric Effects of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 Impacts with Jupiter

Details Ionospheric Effects of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 Impacts with Jupiter Ionospheric Effects of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 Impacts with Jupiter

Dec 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001icar..154..350m&link_type=abstract

Icarus, Volume 154, Issue 2, pp. 350-371 (2001).

Computer Science

7

Scientific paper

We study the thermosphere and ionosphere effects of the July 1994 Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts with Jupiter using a one-dimensional transport model which includes detailed neutral-neutral and ion-neutral chemistry and diffusive vertical transport for a variety of sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen molecular species observed at the time of the impacts. The model uses a background neutral atmosphere based on the temperature profile obtained from Galileo probe measurements and a basic ionospheric model which satisfies current observational constraints on electron and H+3 densities. After the influx of impact-related neutral species into the ionosphere, new ion species such as S+, H3CS+, and NH4+ (and in some cases H3O+, SO+, and HCO+) appear along with the usual ionospheric species. Our model predicts that S+ begins to control the density of the ionospheric peak some hours after impact. The H+3 column density decreases by a factor ranging from 5 to 100, depending on the amount of water present. This is consistent with most non-auroral observations of H+3 emission during and just after the impact period. The model predicts electron density column enhancements of up to a factor of 10 for post-impact times less than a few days as well as significant abundances of S2 at the Galileo observational epoch, though at altitudes below ionospheric levels. Perhaps of more general interest is the compilation, presented here, of the ionospheric mechanisms involved in a comprehensive sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen chemical model which may be of considerable use in future studies of ablation or particle precipitation in any hydrogen-dominated outer-planet ionosphere. .

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