Io's Sodium Directional Features: Evidence for Ionospheric Escape

Details Io's Sodium Directional Features: Evidence for Ionospheric Escape Io's Sodium Directional Features: Evidence for Ionospheric Escape

Sep 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996dps....28.2310w&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #28, #23.10; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 28, p.1154

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present evidence that the `directional features' of Io's sodium cloud are produced by Pedersen current flow and neutralization of sodium ions in Io's ionosphere. The directional features are therefore a probe of the electric and magnetic fields in Io's atmosphere. Since the directional features point nearly perpendicular to the unperturbed Jupiter field near Io, intrinsic fields must not significantly alter the local field line orientations at the altitude of atmospheric escape. The ionospheric currents do modify the magnetic field; they reduce the field strength in Io's wake, which is consistent with Galileo magnetometer results. Reasonable rates for photoionization can explain the production of both the directional features, and the sodium-bearing molecular ions which produce the sodium `stream.' The flux of escaping ionospheric ions may be larger than the flux of torus ions impacting the atmosphere. This suggests the possibility that escape processes (sputtering, charge exchange, ionization and pickup) in Io's atmosphere are driven primarily from below and not from above. This work has been supported by NASA's Planetary Atmospheres Program, Planetary Astronomy Program, and the Graduate Student Researchers Program.

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