Vincent Hue – Exploration of the Jovian Outer Magnetosphere with Juno

Title: Exploration of the Jovian Outer Magnetosphere with Juno
Speaker: Vincent Hue (Research Scientist – Southwest Research Institute)

Abstract: Jupiter’s magnificent auroral lightshow is a direct manifestation of its strong magnetic field, which couples its magnetospheric plasma and ionosphere. In the ultraviolet spectral range, the Jovian auroras are highly structured, and reflect the numerous processes occurring throughout the magnetosphere. Since July 2016, NASA’s New Frontiers mission Juno performs in-situ and remote sensing measurements from within the Jovian magnetosphere. In this talk, we discuss the main auroral regions with a particular emphasis on the polar auroral regions, linked to the outermost region of Jupiter’s magnetosphere and possibly the solar wind. These are the most highly dynamic components of the Jovian auroras, often exhibiting flares evolving over short timescales. We present a new type of auroral feature recently discovered by the Ultraviolet Spectrograph on Juno (Juno-UVS), which consists in circular expanding UV-emission, and discuss their potential origin.