CASSINI-HUYGENS Saturn's big storm

[First paragraph] In contrast to the dramatic meteorology of Jupiter, Saturn’s golden-yellow hues provide an air of calmness, with slow seasonal changes from wintry blues to summertime yellows as the temperatures, chemistry and hazes evolve over Saturn’s 29.5-year orbit. But, once every Saturnian year, a gigantic storm of billowing white cloud activity erupts from those serene cloud decks

Saturn's seasonal atmosphere

Twenty years ago, the flames of a Titan IVB/Centaur rocket split the pre-dawn sky over Cape Canaveral, Florida. On 15 October 1997, the Cassini–Huygens spacecraft embarked on a 2.2 billion-mile journey to the ringed giant, Saturn. It has been in orbit since July 2004, offering glimpses of strange environments almost a billion miles from home. This joint mission from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) launched the careers of hundreds of scientists (myself included) and enthralled millions across the globe. On 15 September 2017, this grand old spacecraft will finally crash into Saturn and, ultimately, become a part of the planet itself

Pro-am collaborations improve views of Jupiter

Leigh N Fletcher and John H Rogers review collaborations between professionals and amateurs during and beyond the NASA Juno mission, as discussed at New Views of Jupiter, a Europlanet workshop held in May

Hydrogen dimers in giant-planet infrared spectra

Despite being one of the weakest dimers in nature, low-spectral-resolution Voyager/IRIS observations revealed the presence of (H2)2 dimers on Jupiter and Saturn in the 1980s. However, the collision-induced H2-H2 opacity databases widely used in planetary science (Borysow et al. 1985; Orton et al. 2007; Richard et al. 2012) have thus far only included free-to-free transitions and have neglected the contributions of dimers. Dimer spectra have both fine-scale structure near the S(0) and S(1) quadrupole lines (354 and 587 cm−1 , respectively), and broad continuum absorption contributions up to ±50 cm−1 from the line centres. We develop a new ab initio model for the free-to-bound, bound-to-free and bound-to-bound transitions of the hydrogen dimer for a range of temperatures (40-400 K) and para-hydrogen fractions (0.25-1.0). The model is validated against low-temperature laboratory experiments, and used to simulate the spectra of the giant planets. The new collision-induced opacity database permits high-resolution (0.5-1.0 cm−1 ) spectral modelling of dimer spectra near S(0) and S(1) in both Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) observations of Jupiter and Saturn, and in Spitzer Infrared Spectrometer (IRS) observations of Uranus and Neptune for the first time. Furthermore, the model reproduces the dimer signatures observed in Voyager/IRIS data near S(0) (McKellar 1984) on Jupiter and Saturn, and generally lowers the amount of para-H2 (and the extent of disequilibrium) required to reproduce IRIS observations

Colour and Tropospheric Cloud Structure of Jupiter from MUSE/VLT: Retrieving a Universal Chromophore

Recent work by Sromovsky et al. (2017, Icarus 291, 232-244) suggested that all red colour in Jupiter's atmosphere could be explained by a single colour-carrying compound, a so-called 'universal chromophore'. We tested this hypothesis on ground-based spectroscopic observations in the visible and near-infrared (480-930 nm) from the VLT/MUSE instrument between 2014 and 2018, retrieving a chromophore absorption spectrum directly from the North Equatorial Belt, and applying it to model spatial variations in colour, tropospheric cloud and haze structure on Jupiter. We found that we could model both the belts and the Great Red Spot of Jupiter using the same chromophore compound, but that this chromophore must exhibit a steeper blue-absorption gradient than the proposed chromophore of Carlson et al. (2016, Icarus 274, 106-115). We retrieved this chromophore to be located no deeper than 0.2+/-0.1 bars in the Great Red Spot and 0.7+/-0.1 bars elsewhere on Jupiter. However, we also identified some spectral variability between 510 nm and 540 nm that could not be accounted for by a universal chromophore. In addition, we retrieved a thick, global cloud layer at 1.4+/-0.3 bars that was relatively spatially invariant in altitude across Jupiter. We found that this cloud layer was best characterised by a real refractive index close to that of ammonia ice in the belts and the Great Red Spot, and poorly characterised by a real refractive index of 1.6 or greater. This may be the result of ammonia cloud at higher altitude obscuring a deeper cloud layer of unknown composition

Thermal Emission from the Uranian Ring System

The narrow main rings of Uranus are composed of almost exclusively centimeter- to meter-sized particles, with a very small or nonexistent dust component; however, the filling factor, composition, thickness, mass, and detailed particle size distribution of these rings remain poorly constrained. Using millimeter (1.3 - 3.1 mm) imaging from the Atacama Large (sub-)Millimeter Array and midinfrared (18.7 µm) imaging from the Very Large Telescope VISIR instrument, we observed the thermal component of the Uranian ring system for the first time. The epsilon ring is detected strongly and can be seen by eye in the images; the other main rings are visible in a radial (azimuthally-averaged) profile at millimeter wavelengths. A simple thermal model similar to the NEATM model of nearEarth asteroids is applied to the epsilon ring to determine a ring particle temperature of 77.3 ± 1.8 K. The observed temperature is higher than expected for fast-rotating ring particles viewed at our observing geometry, meaning that the data favor a model in which the thermal inertia of the ring particles is low and/or their rotation rate is slow. The epsilon ring displays a factor of 2-3 brightness difference between periapsis and apoapsis, with 49.1 ± 2.2% of sightlines through the ring striking a particle. These observations are consistent with optical and near-infrared reflected light observations, confirming the hypothesis that micron-sized dust is not present in the ring system

Seasonal stratospheric photochemistry on Uranus and Neptune

A time-variable 1D photochemical model is used to study the distribution of stratospheric hydrocarbons as a function of altitude, latitude, and season on Uranus and Neptune. The results for Neptune indicate that in the absence of stratospheric circulation or other meridional transport processes, the hydrocarbon abundances exhibit strong seasonal and meridional variations in the upper stratosphere, but that these variations become increasingly damped with depth due to increasing dynamical and chemical time scales. At high altitudes, hydrocarbon mixing ratios are typically largest where the solar insolation is the greatest, leading to strong hemispheric dichotomies between the summer-to-fall hemisphere and winter-to-spring hemisphere. At mbar pressures and deeper, slower chemistry and diffusion lead to latitude variations that become more symmetric about the equator. On Uranus, the stagnant, poorly mixed stratosphere confines methane and its photochemical products to higher pressures, where chemistry and diffusion time scales remain large. Seasonal variations in hydrocarbons are therefore predicted to be more muted on Uranus, despite the planet's very large obliquity. Radiative-transfer simulations demonstrate that latitude variations in hydrocarbons on both planets are potentially observable with future JWST mid-infrared spectral imaging. Our seasonal model predictions for Neptune compare well with retrieved C 2 H 2 and C 2 H 6 abundances from spatially resolved ground-based observations (no such observations currently exist for Uranus), suggesting that stratospheric circulation — which was not included in these models — may have little influence on the large-scale meridional hydrocarbon distributions on Neptune, unlike the situation on Jupiter and Saturn

A dispersive wave pattern on Jupiter's fastest retrograde jet at 20S

A compact wave pattern has been identified on Jupiter’s fastest retrograding jet at 20°S (the SEBs) on the southern edge of the South Equatorial Belt. The wave has been identified in both reflected sunlight from amateur observations between 2010 and 2015, thermal infrared imaging from the Very Large Telescope and near infrared imaging from the Infrared Telescope Facility. The wave pattern is present when the SEB is relatively quiescent and lacking large-scale disturbances, and is particularly notable when the belt has undergone a fade (whitening). It is generally not present when the SEB exhibits its usual large-scale convective activity (‘rifts’). Tracking of the wave pattern and associated white ovals on its southern edge over several epochs have permitted a measure of the dispersion relationship, showing a strong correlation between the phase speed (−−43.2 to −−21.2 m/s) and the longitudinal wavelength, which varied from 4.4 to 10.0° longitude over the course of the observations. Infrared imaging sensing low pressures in the upper troposphere suggest that the wave is confined to near the cloud tops. The wave is moving westward at a phase speed slower (i.e., less negative) than the peak retrograde wind speed (−−62 m/s), and is therefore moving east with respect to the SEBs jet peak. Unlike the retrograde NEBn jet near °N, which is a location of strong vertical wind shear that sometimes hosts Rossby wave activity, the SEBs jet remains retrograde throughout the upper troposphere, suggesting the SEBs pattern cannot be interpreted as a classical Rossby wave. 2D windspeeds and thermal gradients measured by Cassini in 2000 are used to estimate the quasi-geostrophic potential vorticity gradient as a means of understanding the origin of the a wave. We find that the vorticity gradient is dominated by the baroclinic term and becomes negative (changes sign) in a region near the cloud-top level (400–700 mbar) associated with the SEBs. Such a sign reversal is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for the growth of baroclinic instabilities, which is a potential source of the meandering wave pattern

New Observations and Modeling of Jupiter's Quasi-Quadrennial Oscillation

The quasi-quadrennial oscillation (QQO) and its ∼4 year period in Jupiter's atmosphere were first discovered in 7.8 μm infrared observations spanning the 1980s and 1990s from detecting semiregular variations in equatorial brightness temperatures near 10 hPa. New observations that probe between 0.1 and 30 hPa in Jupiter's atmosphere using the Texas Echelon Cross Echelle Spectrograph (TEXES), mounted on the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, have characterized the vertical structure of the QQO during a complete cycle between January 2012 and April 2016. These new observations show the thermal oscillation previously detected at 10 hPa and that it extends over a pressure range of 2-17 hPa. We have incorporated a spectrum of wave drag parameterizations into the Explicit Planetary Isentropic Code general circulation model to simulate the observed Jovian QQO temperature signatures inferred from the TEXES observations as a function of latitude. A new stochastic wave drag parameterization explores vertical wind structure and offers insight into the spectra of waves that likely exist in Jupiter's atmosphere to force the QQO. High-frequency gravity waves produced from convection likely contribute significantly to the QQO momentum budget. The model temperature outputs show strong correlations to equatorial and surrounding latitude temperature fields retrieved from the TEXES data sets at different epochs. Our results reproduce the QQO phenomenon as a zonal jet that descends over time in response to Jovian atmospheric forcing (e.g., gravity waves from convection)

The quest for H-3(+) at Neptune: deep burn observations with NASA IRTF iSHELL

Emission from the molecular ion H+3 is a powerful diagnostic of the upper atmosphere of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, but it remains undetected at Neptune. In search of this emission, we present near-infrared spectral observations of Neptune between 3.93 and 4.00 µm taken with the newly commissioned iSHELL instrument on the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii, obtained 2017 August 17–20. We spent 15.4 h integrating across the disc of the planet, yet were unable to unambiguously identify any H+3 line emissions. Assuming a temperature of 550 K, we derive an upper limit on the column integrated density of 1.0+1.2 −0.8 × 1013 m−2, which is an improvement of 30 per cent on the best previous observational constraint. This result means that models are overestimating the density by at least a factor of 5, highlighting the need for renewed modelling efforts. A potential solution is strong vertical mixing of polyatomic neutral species from Neptune’s upper stratosphere to the thermosphere, reacting with H+3 , thus greatly reducing the column integrated H+3 densities. This upper limit also provide constraints on future attempts at detecting H+3 using the James Webb Space Telescope