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Auroral and Non-Auroral H3+ ion winds at Uranus with Keck-NIRSPEC and IRTF-iSHELL
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  • Emma Miriam Thomas,
  • Tom S. Stallard,
  • Henrik Melin,
  • Mohammad Nahid Chowdhury,
  • Luke Moore,
  • James O'Donoghue,
  • Rosie Eleanor Johnson,
  • Ruoyan Wang,
  • Katie Louise Knowles,
  • Paola Ines Tiranti,
  • Neil Dello Russo,
  • Ronald J. Vervack,
  • Hideyo Kawakita
Emma Miriam Thomas
Northumbria University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Tom S. Stallard
Northumbria University
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Henrik Melin
University of Leicester
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Mohammad Nahid Chowdhury
University of Leicester
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Luke Moore
Boston University
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James O'Donoghue
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
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Rosie Eleanor Johnson
Aberystwyth University
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Ruoyan Wang
University of Leicester
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Katie Louise Knowles
Northumbria University
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Paola Ines Tiranti
University of Leicester
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Neil Dello Russo
Catholic University of America at Goddard Space Flight Center
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Ronald J. Vervack
Johns Hopkins University
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Hideyo Kawakita
Kyoto Sangyo Daigaku
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Abstract

To date, no investigation has documented ionospheric flows at Uranus. Previous investigations of Jupiter and Saturn have demonstrated that mapping ion winds can be used to understand ionospheric currents and how these connect to magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling. We present a study of Uranus’s near infrared emissions (NIR) using data from the Keck II Telescope’s Near InfraRed SPECtrograph (NIRSPEC) and the InfraRed Telescope Facility’s iSHELL spectrograph. H3+ emission lines were used to derive dawn-to-dusk intensity, ionospheric temperatures and ion densities to identify auroral emissions, with their Doppler shifts used to measure ion velocities. We confirm the presence of the southern NIR aurora in 2016, driven by elevated H3+ column densities up to 6.0 x 1016 m-2. While no auroral emissions were detected in 2014, we find a 14% to 20% super rotation across the planet’s disk in 2014 and a 7% to 18% super rotation in 2016.
20 Nov 2024Submitted to ESS Open Archive
28 Nov 2024Published in ESS Open Archive