Jupiter's polar auroral emissions

Abstract

This paper reports a study of Jupiter's polar auroral emissions observed in an extended series of FUV images. They were obtained on seven days, during winter 2000-2001, with the STIS camera on board the Hubble Space Telescope. The fixed pointing yielded highly accurate and consistent tracking of emisson features as Jupiter rotated, allowing the analysis of the auroral morphology and brightness on timescales ranging from seconds to days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the polar emissions, located poleward of the main oval, usually represent about 30% of the total auroral FUV emitted power. They show emission bursts lasting ∼100 s, while the main oval remains stable. The polar region may be divided into three regions apparently fixed in magnetic local time: the dawnside dark region, the poleward swirl region, and the duskside active region in which flares and arc-like features are observed. Each of these UV emission regions can be identified with it's infrared counterpart and probably relates to a different sector of the Dungey cycle or Vasyliunas cycle plasma flows. Copyright 2003 by the American Geophysical Union.