First map of Jupiter's winds using Doppler spectroscopy

  • Research
Published on April 23, 2024 – Updated on April 23, 2024
Dates

on the April 22, 2024

Jupiter
Jupiter

A team led by the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur and New Mexico State University (NMSU, USA) has succeeded in producing the first map of Jupiter's atmospheric circulation using Doppler spectroscopy. This technical achievement was made possible by the JOVIAL imaging spectrometer, specially dedicated to measuring movements in Jupiter's atmosphere.

How strong is the wind on Jupiter? A team led by the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur (OCA, France) and New Mexico State University (NMSU, USA), with collaborators from Japan, the USA and Europe, has attempted to answer this question with a new technique, as part of the JOVIAL project. Until now, our knowledge of wind speeds on other planets in the solar system has been obtained by taking photos of them at different times and measuring the displacement of clouds. This method is called cloud tracking. It has been carried out using images taken by space probes such as NASA's Voyager or Cassini missions, NASA/ESA's Hubble Space Telescope as part of the OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy) program, or even ground-based installations.

Read the full press release.

schema oca
schema oca

Figure 1 (available as animated gif) Reconstructed image and zonal velocity map of Jupiter derived from data obtained with JOVIAL/JIVE at Sunspot, NM, compared with a color image of Jupiter taken on May 4, 2018. Red and blue colors indicate eastward and westward winds, respectively. The maps are constructed by stacking twelve nights of data taken between May 4 and 31, 2018. Data near Jupiter's poles were too noisy to be included in the averaged maps. The image of Jupiter is due to amateur astronomer Damian Peach and was graciously provided by Peter Rosén, who handled its processing.
References

"Three-dimensional atmospheric dynamics of Jupiter from ground-based Doppler imaging spectroscopy in the visible", François-Xavier Schmider, Patrick Gaulme, Raúl Morales-Juberías, Jason Jackiewicz, Ivan Gonçalves, Tristan Guillot et al, Planet. Sci. J. 5 100 (2024)

Contacts

François-Xavier Schmider, CNRS Research Director, Lagrange Laboratory (Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur - Université Côte d'Azur - CNRS), schmider@oca.eu.
Tristant Guillot, CNRS Research Director, Lagrange Laboratory (Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur - Université Côte d'Azur - CNRS), Tristan.Guillot@oca.eu.