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| Titel |
How large is the Io UV footprint? |
| VerfasserIn |
Bertrand Bonfond, Denis Grodent, Jean-Claude Gérard, Aikaterini Radioti |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2010
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 12 (2010) |
| Datensatznummer |
250035253
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Located close to the feet of the magnetic field lines connecting Io to each Jovian hemisphere,
the Io footprint is the auroral signature of the electromagnetic interaction between Io and
Jupiter’s magnetosphere. It consists of several spots followed downstream by an extended
tail. The size of the main spot is expected to scale to the size of the interaction region close to
Io. Consequently, this quantity is crucial to understand the processes involved. However,
the main spot size is a controversial issue as previously published values range
from ~400 km to ~10000 km, leading to contradictory conclusions. Based on
observations carried on with the Hubble Space Telescope STIS and ACS FUV
instruments from 1997 to 2009, we estimate the size of the main footprint spot on a
much larger image sample than previously. Additionally, we carefully selected the
images in order to avoid viewing geometry ambiguities when measuring the spatial
extent of the different features. The main spot length along the footpath is ~900 km
while its width perpendicular to the footpath is |
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