Robert Wilkes Ebert

and 20 more

We present multi-instrument Juno observations on day-of-year 86, 2017 that link particles and fields in Jupiter’s polar magnetosphere to transient UV emissions in Jupiter’s northern auroral region known as dawn storms. Juno ranged from 42ºN - 51ºN in magnetic latitude and 5.8 – 7.8 jovian radii (1 RJ = 71,492 km) during this period. These dawn storm emissions consisted of two separate, elongated structures which extended into the nightside, rotated with the planet, had enhanced brightness (up to at least 1.4 megaRayleigh) and high color ratios. The color ratio is a proxy for the atmospheric penetration depth and therefore the energy of the electrons that produce the UV emissions. Juno observed electrons and ions on magnetic field lines mapping to these emissions. The electrons were primarily field-aligned, bi-directional, and, at times, exhibited sudden intensity decreases below ~10 keV coincident with intensity enhancements up to energies of ~1000 keV, consistent with the high color ratio observations. The more energetic electron distributions had characteristic energies of ~160 – 280 keV and downward energy fluxes (~70 – 135 mW/m2) that were a significant fraction needed to produce the UV emissions for this event. Magnetic field perturbations up to ~0.7% of the local magnetic field showing evidence of upward and downward field-aligned currents, whistler mode waves, and broadband kilometric radio emissions were also observed along Juno’s trajectory during this timeframe. These high latitude observations show similarities to those in the equatorial magnetosphere associated with dynamics processes such as interchange events, plasma injections, and/or tail reconnection.

Daniel Reisenfeld

and 10 more

The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission has shown that variations in the ENA flux from the outer heliosphere are associated with the solar cycle and longer-term variations in the solar wind. In particular, there is a good correlation between the dynamic pressure of the outbound solar wind and variations in the later-observed IBEX ENA flux. The time difference between observations of the outbound solar wind and the heliospheric ENAs with which they correlate ranges from approximately two to six years or more, depending on ENA energy and look direction. This time difference can be used as a means of “sounding” the heliosheath, that is, finding the average distance to the ENA source region in a particular direction. We apply this method to build a three-dimensional map of the heliosphere. We use IBEX ENA data collected over a complete solar cycle, from 2009 through 2019, corrected for survival probability to the inner heliosphere. We divide the data into 56 “macro-pixels” covering the entire sky, and as each point in the sky is sampled once every six months, this gives us a time series of 22 points per macro-pixel on which to time-correlate. Consistent with prior studies and heliospheric models, we find that the shortest distance to the heliopause dHP is slightly south of the nose direction (dHP ~ 110 – 120 au), with a flaring toward the flanks and poles (dHP ~ 160 – 180 au). The heliosphere extends at least ~350 au tailward, which is the distance limit of the technique.