Jupiter's Nightside Airglow and Aurora

doi:10.1126/science.1147613

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Science 12 October 2007:
Vol. 318. no. 5848, pp. 229 - 231
DOI: 10.1126/science.1147613

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Jupiter's Nightside Airglow and Aurora

G. Randall Gladstone,¹^* S. Alan Stern,² David C. Slater,¹ Maarten Versteeg,¹ Michael W. Davis,¹ Kurt D. Retherford,¹ Leslie A. Young,³ Andrew J. Steffl,³ Henry Throop,³ Joel Wm. Parker,³ Harold A. Weaver,⁴ Andrew F. Cheng,² Glenn S. Orton,⁵ John T. Clarke,⁶ Jonathan D. Nichols⁶

Observations of Jupiter's nightside airglow (nightglow) andaurora obtained during the flyby of the New Horizons spacecraftshow an unexpected lack of ultraviolet nightglow emissions,in contrast to the case during the Voyager flybys in 1979. Theflux and average energy of precipitating electrons generallydecrease with increasing local time across the nightside, consistentwith a possible source region along the dusk flank of Jupiter'smagnetosphere. Visible emissions associated with the interactionof Jupiter and its satellite Io extend to a surprisingly highaltitude, indicating localized low-energy electron precipitation.These results indicate that the interaction between Jupiter'supper atmosphere and near-space environment is variable andpoorly understood; extensive observations of the day side areno guide to what goes on at night.

¹ Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX 78238, USA.
² NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546, USA.
³ Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80302, USA.
⁴ The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA.
⁵ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
⁶ Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rgladstone{at}swri.edu

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