Auroral oxygen precipitation at Jupiter

Physics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

57

Atmospheric Composition And Structure: Airglow And Aurora, Ionosphere: Particle Precipitation, Ionosphere: Planetary Ionospheres, Planetology: Fluid Planets: Interactions With Particles And Fields

Scientific paper

The Jovian aurora is much more powerful than the terrestrial aurora, and some of the auroral energy deposition is thought to come from energetic oxygen and sulfur precipitation. Auroral oxygen and sulfur ions deposit their energy in the atmosphere by means of ionization, dissociation, and heating processes. Energetic oxygen precipitation at Jupiter was previously modeled with the lowest four charge states (O, O+, O2+, and O3+) (Horanyi et al., 1988). In this paper, the model will be extended to include all the charge states of oxygen from neutral oxygen up to fully stripped oxygen. The energy deposition by incident ions with energies in excess of about 200 keV/amu is largely determined by the higher charge states. The model extension is also needed to study auroral X ray emission by energetic highly charged ions. In this paper we estimate that a total auroral X ray power of about 108 W is produced by highly charged excited oxygen ions, which is in agreement with the X ray power observed at Jupiter by the Röntgen satellite (ROSAT; Waite et al., 1994). We also construct a ``predicted'' X ray energy spectrum for sulfur and oxygen ions which agrees rather well with the spectrum measured by ROSAT. Our calculations support the assertion made by Waite et al. (1994) that the Jovian X ray emission observed by ROSAT can be explained by energetic ion precipitation.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Auroral oxygen precipitation at Jupiter does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Auroral oxygen precipitation at Jupiter, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Auroral oxygen precipitation at Jupiter will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-828707

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.