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Morphology of Jupiter's Polar Auroral Bright Spot Emissions via Juno-UVS Observations
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  • Kamolporn Haewsantati,
  • Bertrand Bonfond,
  • Suwicha Wannawichian,
  • Randy Gladstone,
  • Vincent Hue,
  • Maarten Versteeg,
  • Thomas Greathouse,
  • Denis Grodent,
  • Zhonghua Yao,
  • William Dunn,
  • Jean-Claude GERARD,
  • Rohini Giles,
  • Joshua Kammer,
  • Ruilong Guo,
  • Marissa Vogt
Kamolporn Haewsantati
LPAP, STAR Institute, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Bertrand Bonfond
LPAP
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Suwicha Wannawichian
Department of Physics and Materials Science
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Randy Gladstone
Southwest Research Institute
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Vincent Hue
Southwest Research Institute
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Maarten Versteeg
Southwest Research Institute
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Thomas Greathouse
Southwest Research Institute
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Denis Grodent
LPAP, STAR Institute, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium
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Zhonghua Yao
Key Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Physics, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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William Dunn
Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Department of Space and Climate Physics, University College London, Dorking, UK
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Jean-Claude GERARD
LPAP, STAR Institute, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium
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Rohini Giles
Southwest Research Institute
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Joshua Kammer
Southwest Research Institute
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Ruilong Guo
Université de Liège
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Marissa Vogt
Boston University
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Abstract

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.
Feb 2021Published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics volume 126 issue 2. 10.1029/2020JA028586