Variability of Io’s Aurora and the Moon’s Footprint on Jupiter

Abstract: We study the variability of intensity of Io’s aurora asa function of Jupiter’s rotation measured in system III longitude.The far-ultraviolet intensity of Io’s aurora was measured by theHubble Space Telescope (HST) using the FUV-MAMA photondetector of the STIS. The data was processed using Matlab tofilter background and reflection, and account for the detector’soptical systems. Target regions of the detector were isolated forthe measurement of the OI(1356 ̊A) and SI(1479 ̊A) emissionsrespectively. By sampling photon detections within each emissionregion, we compute intensity reconstructions that we map tosystem III longitude. Curves were then fitted to the reconstruc-tions using a sinus fit. The results show two intensity peaks atsystem III longitudes (140±5)◦and (284±2)◦for both OIandSI. The difference in amplitude between the peaks are (38±6)%and (28±6)% for OIand SIrespectively. The asymmetriespeak intensities is possibly caused by the probability of excitingsulphur being higher than the probability of exciting sulphur.For a full explanation measurement of the oxygen to sulphurproportion in Ios atmosphere would be needed. We compare theresults to peaks of Io’s footprint on Jupiter measured by JUNOand other HST data sets. We find it likely that we confirm furthervariance in peak angle than reported in other research. This isespecially clear in the first intensity peak as it has a significantlylarger angle. Variability in Jupiter’s magnetic field and densityof the Jovian plasma torus is likely to explain peak angle andintensity variability, but further research is necessary to explainthe mechanisms in detail.