Denis Grodent

The purpose of this HST white paper is to demonstrate that it is possible to monitor Jupiter's polar haze with HST/STIS without breaking the ground screening limit for bright objects. This demonstration rests on a thorough simulation of STIS output from an existing image obtained with HST/WFPC2. It is shown that the STIS NUV-MAMA + F25CIII filter assembly provides a count rate per pixel ~11 times smaller than that obtained for one pixel of WFPC2 WF3 CCD + F218W corresponding filter. This ratio is sufficiently large to cope with the bright solar light scattered by Jupiter's atmosphere, which was a lesser concern for WFPC2 CCD safety. These STIS images would provide unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution observations of small-scale stratospheric aerosol structures, possibly associated with Jupiter's complex FUV aurora.

In 2016, the NASA Juno spacecraft will initiate its one-year mission around Jupiter and become the first probe to explore the polar regions of Jupiter. The HST UV instruments (STIS and ACS) can greatly contribute to the success of the Juno mission by providing key complementary views of Jupiter's UV aurora from Earth orbit. Juno carries an ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) and an infrared spectral mapper (JIRAM) that will obtain high-resolution spectral images providing the auroral counterpart to Juno's in situ particles and fields measurements with the plasma JADE and JEDI particle detectors. The Juno mission will be the first opportunity to measure simultaneously the energetic particles at high latitude and the auroral emissions they produce. Following programmatic and technical limitations, the amount of UVS data transmitted to Earth will be severely restricted. Therefore, it is of extreme importance that HST captures as much additional information as possible on Jupiter's UV aurora during the one-year life of the Juno mission. This white paper is a plea for a "Juno initiative" that will ensure that a sufficient number of orbits is allocated to this unique solar system mission.

Ultraviolet Hubble Space Telescope images reveal a faint but distinct auroral emission equatorward of the main ring of emission of Saturn's southern polar region. This outer auroral emission is only visible near the nightside limb for the strongly tilted viewing geometry achieved in January 2004. We model the limb‐brightening amplification of this emission, and we show that the observations are compatible with an ∼7° wide emission ring approximately centered on the 67°S parallel. The 1.7 kR brightness of this emission requires an injected electron energy flux of ∼0.3 mW m⁻². The outer auroral emission maps to a region of the equatorial plane between 4 and 11 R_S. We suggest that a population of suprathermal electrons observed by Cassini can provide more than the required energy flux without the need for field‐aligned acceleration. This auroral UV emission may also be associated with energetic neutral oxygen and hydrogen atoms originating from the energetic protons and O⁺ of magnetosphere and/or with a secondary infrared auroral oval.

The interaction of Ganymede with Jupiter's fast rotating magnetospheric plasma gives rise to a current system producing an auroral footprint in Jupiter's ionosphere, usually referred to as the Ganymede footprint. Based on an analysis of ultraviolet images obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope, we demonstrate that the auroral footprint surface matches a circular region in Ganymede's orbital plane having a diameter of 8–20 R_G. Temporal analysis of the auroral power of Ganymede's footprint reveals variations of different timescales: (1) a 5‐hour timescale associated with the periodic flapping of Jupiter's plasma sheet over Ganymede, (2) a 10–40 minute timescale possibly associated with energetic magnetospheric events, such as plasma injections, and (3) a 100‐s timescale corresponding to quasiperiodic fluctuations, which might relate to bursty reconnections on Ganymede's magnetopause and/or to the recurrent presence of acceleration structures above Jupiter's atmosphere. These three temporal components produce an auroral power emitted at Ganymede's footprint of the order of ∼0.2 to ∼1.5 GW.

We analyze more than 1000 HST/Advanced Camera for Survey images of the ultraviolet auroral emissions appearing in the northern hemisphere of Jupiter. The auroral footprints of Io, Europa, and Ganymede form individual footpaths, which are fitted with three reference contours. The satellite footprints provide a convenient mapping between the northern Jovian ionosphere and the equatorial plane in the middle magnetosphere, independent of any magnetic field model. The VIP4 magnetic field model is in relatively good agreement with the observed footprint of Io. However, in the auroral kink sector, between the 80° and 150° System III meridians, the model significantly departs from the observation. One possible way to improve the agreement between the VIP4 model and the observed footprints is to include a magnetic anomaly. We suggest that this anomaly is characterized by a weakening of the surface magnetic field in the kink sector and by an added localized tilted dipole field. This dipole rotates with the planet at a depth of 0.245 R_J below the surface, and its magnitude is set to ∼1% of Jupiter's dipole moment. The anomaly has a very limited influence on the magnetic field intensity in the equatorial plane between the orbits of Io and Ganymede. However, it is sufficient to bend the field lines near the high‐latitude atmosphere and to reproduce the observed satellite ultraviolet footpaths. JUNO's in situ measurements will determine the structure of Jupiter's magnetic field in detail to expand on these results.

We examine the case of significant latitudinal shifts of the Jovian northern auroral emissions appearing in a data set spanning nine years of observations with the Hubble Space Telescope in the far ultraviolet. The extended data set makes it possible to compare the location of the main auroral emission with similar viewing geometries and satellite positions. The main auroral emission is assumed to originate from beyond the orbit of Ganymede (15 Jovian radii). At these distances, near corotation enforcement and transfer of momentum from Jupiter to the magnetospheric plasma is ensured by means of field aligned currents. The field aligned currents away from Jupiter are carried by downward energetic electrons loosing their energy to the polar atmosphere and giving rise to the main auroral emission. Analysis of the polar projected images shows that the latitudinal location of the main emission has changed by up to 3° over long periods of time. It also shows that the footprint of Ganymede follows a similar trend. We have used the VIP4 magnetic field model to map the emission down to the equatorial plane. This mapping suggests that internal variations of the current sheet parameters might be used as an alternative or complementary explanation to the changing solar wind conditions at Jupiter to explain the observed shift of auroral latitudes.

Ultraviolet images of Jupiter's northern aurora obtained in 2005 confirm the existence of an electromagnetic interaction between Europa and the Jovian ionosphere. The auroral signature shows a two‐component structure: a quasi‐circular Europa spot, followed by a previously undetected faint tail emission trailing in the direction of corotation flow. The characteristic brightness for the auroral spot is ∼14 ± 1 kR above background, and approximately 7 ± 1 kR for the tail. The spot's size is ∼1100 km, magnetically mapping to an interaction region ≤15 Europa diameters. The auroral tail extends over ∼5000 km, which maps along a region of at least 70 Europa diameters. The ultraviolet power emitted by both components varies from a fraction to several GW. The present study suggests auroral interaction at Europa similar to that at Io, but scaled‐down by an order of magnitude, including a sub‐corotating plasma plume in the geometrical wake of Europa.