First ALMA Millimeter-wavelength Maps of Jupiter, with a Multiwavelength Study of Convection

We obtained the first maps of Jupiter at 1-3 mm wavelength with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) on 2017 January 3-5, just days after an energetic eruption at 16.5S jovigraphic latitude had been reported by the amateur community, and about two to three months after the detection of similarly energetic eruptions in the northern hemisphere, at 22.2-23.0N. Our observations, probing below the ammonia cloud deck, show that the erupting plumes in the South Equatorial Belt bring up ammonia gas from the deep atmosphere. While models of plume eruptions that are triggered at the water condensation level explain data taken at uv-visible and mid-infrared wavelengths, our ALMA observations provide a crucial, hitherto missing, link in the moist convection theory by showing that ammonia gas from the deep atmosphere is indeed brought up in these plumes. Contemporaneous Hubble Space Telescope data show that the plumes reach altitudes as high as the tropopause. We suggest that the plumes at 22.2-23.0N also rise up well above the ammonia cloud deck and that descending air may dry the neighboring belts even more than in quiescent times, which would explain our observations in the north.Astrodynamics & Space Mission

An Energetic Eruption With Associated SO 1.707 Micron Emissions at Io's Kanehekili Fluctus and a Brightening Event at Loki Patera Observed by JWST

We observed Io with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) while the satellite was in eclipse, and detected thermal emission from several volcanoes. The data were taken as part of our JWST-ERS program #1373 on 15 November 2022. Kanehekili Fluctus was exceptionally bright, and Loki Patera had most likely entered a new brightening phase. Spectra were taken with NIRSpec/IFU at a resolving power R ≈ 2,700 between 1.65 and 5.3 µm. The spectra were matched by a combination of blackbody curves that showed that the highest temperature, ∼1,200 K, for Kanehekili Fluctus originated from an area ∼0.25 km2 in size, and for Loki Patera this high temperature was confined to an area of ∼0.06 km2. Lower temperatures, down to 300 K, cover areas of ∼2,000 km2 for Kanehekili Fluctus, and ∼5,000 km2 for Loki Patera. We further detected the a1Δ ⇒ X3Σ− 1.707 µm rovibronic forbidden SO emission band complex over the southern hemisphere, which peaked at the location of Kanehekili Fluctus. This is the first time this emission has been seen above an active volcano, and suggests that the origin of such emissions is ejection of SO molecules directly from the vent in an excited state, after having been equilibrated at temperatures of ∼1,500 K below the surface, as was previously hypothesized.Astrodynamics & Space Mission