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K.E. Fast, T. A. Livengood (University of Maryland at NASA/GSFC), T. Kostiuk, D. Buhl, F. Espenak, P. N. Romani (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center), A. L. Betz, R. T. Boreiko (University of Colorado, Boulder)
The collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter deposited species such as ammonia into the Jovian stratosphere, where they are not normally present. Ammonia is photochemically destroyed by solar UV radiation, and knowledge of the timescales involved in its removal would shed some light on the processes that take place in the Jovian stratosphere.
Infrared heterodyne ammonia emission line spectra acquired at a resolving power of ~1E7 by Betz et al. (DPS 26-Abstracts for Special Session on Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, p 25, 1994) are analyzed using our radiative transfer modeling software. The goal is to retrieve stratospheric ammonia mole fractions and altitude distributions, and temperature information. The spectra are from six different impact regions and were acquired from hours to 3 weeks following the impacts. The spectra were obtained from each observed impact site on up to four different days, allowing the opportunity to investigate the temporal behavior of ammonia in the stratosphere of Jupiter, as well as the temperatures after the impacts, over a moderate timescale. The results of the modeling will be presented, and are particularly useful as the observations were from a single instrument looking at specific emission lines from individual impact regions on multiple occasions over an extended period after impact. Ultimately, these results will be combined with the previous ammonia retrievals from our heterodyne spectra (Kostiuk et al., Icarus 121, 431-441, 1996), as well as retrievals from other investigators, using the same radiative transfer analysis. This consistent combined data set can be used to investigate the long-term behavior of ammonia in the stratosphere, as well as provide constraints on current photochemical models.