University:
Boston University
Course:
CAS PY 105 | Physics 1
Academic year:

2021
Views:

193

Pages:

1
Author:

Wittmerxe6w

Io’s Volcanic Atmosphere and Plasma Torus The volcanically ac ve moon Io supplies nearly 1 ton/s of escaping material that is rapidly ionized and shaped by Jupiter's magne c ﬁeld to form a toroidal plasma nebula. Emissions from this torus oﬀer a unique opportunity to snap a picture of a magnetosphere through the lens of a telescope. This talk oﬀers an introduc on to the plasma torus and its interac on with Io from an observa onal perspec ve, via ground-based campaigns coordinated with JAXA's Hisaki and NASA's Juno spacecra . Ion enhancements downstream of Io are newly observed. This visible Io phase eﬀect diﬀers from that in the UV and lags further behind the immediate wake. Such may reﬂect density and temperature perturba ons as the plasma sweeps past Io, oﬀering important clues about how this moon's atmospheric loss feeds the torus. Recurrent traits in the torus posi on are observed as a func on Jovian longitude and local me. These yield a good match to earlier data sets, but a poor match to theory, which prescribes that it should track the magne c ﬁeld. The mo on guides the plasma interac on with Io that in turn supplies neutral clouds and energe c atoms through charge exchange and dissocia ve recombina on. The resultant fast neutral jet from Io has been observed to periodically impact the adjacent moon Europa under certain geometry, and has suﬃcient energy to escape the Jovian system en rely.

Io’s Volcanic Atmosphere and Plasma Torus

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