Jupiter's main auroral emissions usually form auroral curtains surrounding the magnetic poles. Most explanations for this auroral feature are based on corotation enforcement currents flowing between the magnetosphere and the ionosphere. This process predicts the highest emitted power to originate from the dawn region, while the lowest emitted power would come from the noon to dusk region. However, a previous study using Hubble Space Telescope data showed the opposite, with a higher emitted power in the dusk region in the south and ambiguous results in the north. In the present study, we use data from the first 39 Juno perijoves to reexamine this question. We find a dusk region 3.3 to 5.5 times more powerful than the dawn one, in qualitative agreement with the previous study but contrary to theoretical expectations. These results support the idea that the main emissions cannot be fully described by corotation enforcement currents.

The electromagnetic coupling between the Galilean satellites at Jupiter and the planetary ionosphere generates an auroral footprint, whose ultimate source is the relative velocity between the moons and the corotating magnetospheric plasma. The footprint can be detected in the infrared L band (3.3-3.6 microns) by the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) onboard the Juno spacecraft, which can observe the footprint position with high precision. Here, we report the JIRAM data acquired since August 27th 2016 until May 23rd 2022, corresponding to the first 42 orbits of Juno. The dataset is used to compute the average position of the footprint tracks of Io, Europa and Ganymede. The result of the present analysis can help to test the reliability of magnetic field models, to calibrate ground-based observations and to highlight episodes of variability in the footprint positions, which in turn can point out specific conditions of the Jovian magnetospheric environment.

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.

Polar aurorae are a direct consequence of the dynamics of the plasma in the magnetosphere. The sources of mass and energy differ between the Earth's and Jupiter's magnetospheres, hence leading to fundamentally distinct auroral morphologies and very different responses to solar wind variations. Here we report on the imaging of all development stages of spectacular auroral events at Jupiter, called dawn storms, including their initiation on the night side. Our results reveal surprising similarities with auroral substorms at Earth, which stem from explosive magnetospheric reconfigurations. These findings demonstrate that, whatever their sources, mass and energy do not always circulate smoothly in planetary magnetospheres. Instead they often accumulate until the magnetospheres reconfigure and generate substorm-like responses in the planetary aurorae.

Juno’s arrival at Jupiter in 2016 revealed unprecedented details about Jupiter’s ultraviolet aurorae thanks to its unique suite of remote sensing and in situ instruments. Here we present results from in situ observations during Juno flybys above specific bright auroral spots in Jupiter’s polar aurora. We compare data observed by Juno-UVS, JEDI, JADE, Waves, and MAG instruments when Juno was magnetically connected to bright polar auroral spots during perijove 3 (PJ3), PJ15, and PJ33. The highly energetic particles observed by JEDI show enhancements dominated by upward electrons, which suggests that the particle acceleration region takes place below the spacecraft. Moreover, both brightness and upward particle flux were higher for the northern bright spot in PJ3 compared to the southern spots found in PJ15 and PJ33. In addition, we notice the intensification of whistler-mode waves at the time of the particle enhancements, suggesting that wave-particle interactions contribute to the acceleration of particles which cause the UV aurorae. The MAG data reveal magnetic perturbations during the PJ3 spot detection by Juno, which suggests the presence of significant field-aligned electric currents. While the stable position of the bright spots in System III suggests that the phenomenon is fixed with respect to the rotation of the planet, the presence of field-aligned currents leaves open the possibility of an origin rooted much farther in the magnetosphere.

Jupiter displays many distinct auroral structures, among which auroral dawn storms and auroral injections are often observed contemporaneously. However, it is unclear if the contemporaneous nature of the observations is a coincidence or part of an underlying physical connection. We show six clear examples from a recent Hubble Space Telescope campaign (GO-14634) that each display both auroral dawn storms and auroral injection signatures. We found that these conjugate phenomena could exist during intervals of either relatively low or high auroral activity, as evidenced by the varied levels of total auroral power. In-situ observations of the magnetosphere by Juno, show a strong magnetic reconnection event inside of 45 Jupiter Radii (RJ) on the predawn sector, followed by two dipolarization events within the following two hours, coincident with the auroral dawn storm and auroral injection event. We therefore suggest that the auroral dawn storm is the manifestation of magnetic reconnection in the dawnside magnetosphere. The dipolarization region mapped to the auroral injection, strongly suggesting that this was associated with the auroral injection. Since magnetic reconnection and dipolarization are physically connected, we therefore suggest that the often-conjugate auroral dawn storm and auroral injection events are also physically connected consequences.

Quasi-periodic variations of a few to several days are observed in the energetic plasma and magnetic dipolarization in Jupiter’s magnetosphere. Variation in the plasma mass flux related to Io’s volcanic activity is proposed as a candidate of the variety of the period. Using a long-term monitoring of Jupiter by the Earth-orbiting space telescope Hisaki, we analyzed the quasi-periodic variation seen in the auroral power integrated over the northern pole for 2014–2016, which included monitoring Io’s volcanically active period in 2015 and the solar wind near Jupiter during Juno’s approach in 2016. Quasi-periodic variation with periods of 0.8–8 days was detected. The difference between the periodicities during volcanically active and quiet periods is not significant. Our dataset suggests that a difference of period between this volcanically active and quiet conditions is below 1.25 days. This is consistent with the expected difference estimated from a proposed relationship based on a theoretical model applied to the plasma variation of this volcanic event. The periodicity does not show a clear correlation with the auroral power, central meridional longitude, or Io phase angle. The periodic variation is continuously observed in addition to the auroral modulation due to solar wind variation. Furthermore, Hisaki auroral data sometimes shows particularly intense auroral bursts of emissions lasting <10h. We find that these bursts coincide with peaks of the periodic variations. Moreover, the occurrence of these bursts increases during the volcanically active period. This auroral observation links parts of previous observations to give a global view of Jupiter’s magnetospheric dynamics.

Although mass and energy in Jupiter's magnetosphere mostly come from the innermost Galilean moon Io's volcanic activity, solar wind perturbations can play crucial roles in releasing the magnetospheric energy and powering aurorae in Jupiter's polar regions. The relative importance of solar wind and internal processes in driving Jupiter's auroras remains poorly understood. Recently, the contemporaneous measurements from NASA Juno mission and the Hubble Space Telescope provide an unprecedented opportunity to determine the magnetospheric drivers of auroral variations at Jupiter, and key evidence on how solar wind would affect the auroral brightening. In this presentation, we will discuss several important advances on several distinctive auroral morphologies at Jupiter, i.e., auroral dawn storm, the main auroral brightening and auroral injection processes. We find that magnetic reconnection and dipolarization play crucial roles in driving these auroras, and the auroral drivers for the Earth and Jupiter have more in common than ever expected.

Hubble Space Telescope images of Jupiter’s UV aurora show that the main emission occasionally contracts or expands, shifting toward or away from the magnetic pole by several degrees in response to changes in the solar wind dynamic pressure and Io’s volcanic activity. When the auroral footprints of the Galilean satellites move with the main emission this indicates a change in the stretched field line configuration that shifts the ionospheric mapping of a given radial distance at the equator. However, in some cases, the main emission shifts independently from the satellite footprints, indicating that the variability stems from some other part of the corotation enforcement current system that produces Jupiter’s main auroral emissions. Here we analyze HST images from the Galileo era (1996-2003) and compare latitudinal shifts of the Ganymede footprint and the main auroral emission. We focus on images with overlapping Galileo measurements because concurrent measurements are available of the current sheet strength, which indicates the amount of field line stretching and can influence both the main emission and satellite footprints. We show that the Ganymede footprint and main auroral emission typically, but do not always, move together. Additionally, we find that the auroral shifts are only weakly linked to changes in the current sheet strength measured by Galileo. We discuss implications of the observed auroral shifts in terms of the magnetospheric mapping. Finally, we establish how the statistical reference main emission contours vary with CML and show that the dependence results from magnetospheric local time asymmetries.

Since 2016, the Juno-UVS instrument has been taking spectral images of Jupiter’s auroras during its polar fly-bys. These observations provide a great opportunity to study Jupiter’s auroras in their full extent, including the nightside, which is inaccessible from Earth. We present a systematic analysis of features in Jupiter’s polar auroras called auroral bright spots observed during the first 25 Juno orbits. Bright spots were identified in 16 perijoves (PJ) out of 24 (there was no available data for perijove 2), in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The emitted power of the bright spots is time variable with peak power ranging from a few tens to a hundred of gigawatts. Moreover, we found that, for some perijoves, bright spots exhibit quasiperiodic behavior. The spots, within PJ4 and PJ16, each reappeared at almost the same system III position of their first appearance with periods of 28 and 22 minutes, respectively. This period is similar to that of quasiperiodic emissions previously identified in X-rays and various other observations. The bright spot position is in a specific region in the northern hemisphere in system III, but are scattered around the magnetic pole in the southern hemisphere, near the edge of the swirl region. Furthermore, our analysis shows that the bright spots can be seen at any local time, rather than being confined to the noon sector as previously thought based on biased observations. This suggests that the bright spots might not be firmly connected to the noon facing magnetospheric cusp processes.

Auroral brightness and color ratio imagery, captured using the Juno mission’s Ultraviolet Spectrograph, display intense emissions poleward of Jupiter’s northern main emission, and these are split into two distinctly different spectral or “color ratio” regimes. The most poleward region, designated the “swirl region” by Grodent et al. (2003), exhibits a high color ratio, while low color ratio emissions are found within the collar around the swirl region but still poleward of the main emission. We confirm the apparent strong magnetospheric local time control within the polar collar (Grodent et al., 2003), with the dusk side bright “active region” emissions extending from ~11 to 22 hr of magnetospheric local time. These bright emissions dim by at least an order of magnitude between ~0 and 11 hr magnetospheric local time, in the midnight to dawn side “dark region”. This magnetospheric local time structure holds true even when the entire northern oval is located on the night side of the planet (in ionospheric local time), a geometry unstudied prior to Juno, as it is unobservable from Earth. The swirl region brightens at ionospheric dawn (~5-7 ionospheric local time) and diminishes or completely disappears at ionospheric local times of ~20 to 22 hrs. Finally, the southern auroral polar emissions appear to share all of the local time dependencies of its northern counterpart, but at a reduced intensity.

The Juno spacecraft’s polar orbits have enabled direct sampling of Jupiter’s low-altitude auroral field lines. While various datasets have identified unique features over Jupiter’s main aurora, they are yet to be analyzed altogether to determine how they can be reconciled and fit into the bigger picture of Jupiter’s auroral generation mechanisms. Jupiter’s main aurora has been classified into distinct “zones”, based on repeatable signatures found in energetic electron and proton spectra. We combine fields, particles, and plasma wave datasets to analyze Zone-I and Zone-II, which are suggested to carry the upward and downward field-aligned currents, respectively. We find Zone-I to have well-defined boundaries across all datasets. H+ and/or H3+ cyclotron waves are commonly observed in Zone-I in the presence of energetic upward H+ beams and downward energetic electron beams. Zone-II, on the other hand, does not have a clear poleward boundary with the polar cap, and its signatures are more sporadic. Large-amplitude solitary waves, which are reminiscent of those ubiquitous in Earth’s downward current region, are a key feature of Zone-II. Alfvénic fluctuations are most prominent in the diffuse aurora and are repeatedly found to diminish in Zone-I and Zone-II, likely due to dissipation, at higher altitudes, to energize auroral electrons. Finally, we identify sharp and well-defined electron density depletions, by up to two orders of magnitude, in Zone-I, and discuss their important implications for the development of parallel potentials, Alfvénic dissipation, and radio wave generation.